If the artillery, with a most inferior equipment, was less efficient than the infantry, the cavalry was an invaluable auxiliary.  Ashby was the beau-ideal of a captain of light-horse.  His reckless daring, both across-country and under fire, made him the idol of the army.  Nor was his reputation confined to the Confederate ranks.  “I think even our men,” says a Federal officer, “had a kind of admiration for him, as he sat unmoved upon his horse, and let them pepper away at him as if he enjoyed it.”  His one shortcoming was his ignorance of drill and discipline.  But in the spring of 1862 these deficiencies were in a fair way of being rectified.  He had already learned something of tactics.  In command of a few hundred mounted riflemen and a section of horse-artillery he was unsurpassed; and if his men were apt to get out of hand in battle, his personal activity ensured their strict attention on the outposts.  He thought little of riding seventy or eighty miles within the day along his picket line, and it is said that he first recommended himself to Jackson by visiting the Federal camps disguised as a horse doctor.  Jackson placed much dependence on his mounted troops.  Immediately he arrived in the Valley he established his cavalry outposts far to the front.  While the infantry were reposing in their camps near Winchester, the south bank of the Potomac, forty miles northward, was closely and incessantly patrolled.  The squadrons never lacked recruits.  With the horse-loving Virginians the cavalry was the favourite arm, and the strength of the regiments was only limited by the difficulty of obtaining horses.  To the sons of the Valley planters and farmers Ashby’s ranks offered a most attractive career.  The discipline was easy, and there was no time for drill.  But of excitement and adventure there was enough and to spare.  Scarcely a day passed without shots being exchanged at one point or another of the picket line.  There were the enemy’s outposts to be harassed, prisoners to be taken, bridges to be burnt, and convoys to be captured.  Many were the opportunities for distinction.  Jackson demanded something more from his cavalry than merely guarding the frontier.  It was not sufficient for him to receive warning that the enemy was advancing.  He wanted information from which he could deduce what he intended doing; information of the strength of his garrisons, of the dispositions of his camps, of every movement which took place beyond the river.  The cavalry had other and more dangerous duties than vedette and escort.  To penetrate the enemy’s lines, to approach his camps, and observe his columns—­these were the tasks of Ashby’s riders, and in these they were unrivalled.  Many of them were no more than boys; but their qualifications for such a life were undeniable.  A more gallant or high-spirited body of young soldiers never welcomed the boot and saddle.  Their horses were their own, scions of good Virginian stock, with the blood of many a well-known