I
recommend that the law authorizing these partisan corps be
abolished. The evils resulting from their organization more than
counterbalance the good they accomplish." The Secretary of War, Mr.
Siddon, drafted a bill to abolish them, and it passed the
Confederate House. Delay occurring in the Senate, the matter was
compromised by transferring all the Rangers except Mosby's and
McNeill's to the line. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 1082, 1253.] As it was
to Mosby's that the reported facts applied, and all agreed that his
was the best of the lot, we may imagine what must have been the
character of the rest.
In the first two winters of the war, these organizations were in the
height of their pernicious activity, and the loyal West Virginians
were their favorite victims. We knew almost nothing of their
organization, except that they claimed some Confederate law for
their being. We seldom found them in uniform, and had no means of
distinguishing them from any other armed horse-stealers and
"bush-whackers." We were, however, made unpleasantly certain of the
fact that in every neighborhood where secession sentiments were
rife, our messengers were waylaid and killed, small parties were
ambushed, and all the exasperating forms of guerilla warfare were
abundant.
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