"H. Beam Piper - Rebel Raider" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

supplies.' Let us discard all such ideas. Let us study the probable lines of retreat of our opponents, and
leave our own to take care of themselves."

That intrigued Mosby. If General Pope wasn't going to take care of his own rear, somebody ought to do
it for him, and who better than John Mosby? He went promptly to Stuart, pointing out Pope's disinterest
in his own lines of supply and communication, and asked that he be given about twenty men and detailed
to get into Pope's rear and see what sort of disturbance he could create.

Stuart doubted the propriety of sending men into what was then Stonewall Jackson's territory, but he
gave Mosby a letter to Jackson, recommending the bearer highly and outlining what he proposed doing,
with the request that he be given some men to try it. With this letter, Mosby set out for Jackson's
headquarters.

He never reached his destination. On the way, he was taken prisoner by a raiding force of New York
cavalry, and arrived, instead, at Old Capitol jail in Washington. Stuart requested his exchange at once,
and Mosby spent only about ten days in Old Capitol, and then was sent down the Potomac on an
exchange boat, along with a number of other prisoners of war, for Hampton Roads.

The boat-load of prisoners, about to be exchanged and returned to their own army, were allowed to
pass through a busy port of military embarkation and debarkation, with every opportunity to observe
everything that was going on, and, to make a bad matter worse, the steamboat captain was himself a
Confederate sympathizer. So when Mosby, from the exchange boat, observed a number of transports
lying at anchor, he had no trouble at all in learning that they carried Burnside's men, newly brought north
from the Carolinas. With the help of the steamboat captain, Mosby was able to learn that the transports
were bound for Acquia Creek, on the Potomac; that meant that the re-enforcements were for Pope.




As soon as he was exchanged, Mosby made all haste for Lee's headquarters to report what he had
discovered. Lee, remembering Mosby as the man who had scouted ahead of Stuart's Ride Around
MacClellan, knew that he had a hot bit of information from a credible source. A dispatch rider was
started off at once for Jackson, and Jackson struck Pope at Cedar Mountain before he could be
re-enforced. Mosby returned to Stuart's headquarters, losing no time in promoting a pair of .44's to
replace the ones lost when captured, and found his stock with Stuart at an all-time high as a result of his
recent feat of espionage while in the hands of the enemy.

So he was with Stuart when Stuart stopped at Laura Ratcliffe's home, and was on hand when Stuart
wanted to make one of his characteristic gestures of gallantry. And so he finally got his independent
commandтАФall of six menтАФand orders to operate in the enemy's rear.

Whatever Stuart might have had in mind in leaving him behind "to look after the loyal Confederate
people," John Mosby had no intention of posting himself in Laura Ratcliffe's front yard as a guard of
honor. He had a theory of guerrilla warfare which he wanted to test. In part, it derived from his
experiences in the Shenandoah Valley and in Fairfax County, but in larger part, it was based upon his
own understanding of the fundamental nature of war.

The majority of guerrilla leaders have always been severely tactical in their thinking. That is to say, they
have been concerned almost exclusively with immediate results. A troop column is ambushed, a picket
post attacked, or a supply dump destroyed for the sake of the immediate loss of personnel or materiel so