white lies to protect them from the scandal of his brawling, gambling, and carousing with women. He’d been expelled after dueling with another student over a not-so-virtuous lady. Only by luck had the man recovered from his wound and intervened to have him reinstated, following payment of an exorbitant sum of money.
His parents had all but given up hope of children when Alexanderwas born. He soon became his father’s pride and joy and the apple of his mother’s eye. But when he grew into a rebellious teenager, James Hunt sheltered his delicate wife from his rowdy behavior. Now that his father had grown old and troubled by a weakened heart, Alexander’s web of lies also included him. However, it was no longer schoolyard brawling that would bring shame to the Hunt family reputation. These days he was up to his neck in something that could send him to a Northern prison…or put him at the end of a hangman’s noose.
His mother had begged him not to join the Confederate Army during Jefferson Davis’s call for volunteers. She insisted he run the plantation due to his father’s poor health. Many in his social class resisted the impulse to enlist and fulfilled their patriotic duty in safer ways. Alexander had no desire for the tedium of camp life—the endless drills, marches to nowhere, and the stultifying boredom between battles. Following secession, he yearned to serve his fledging country, but not within the confines of the regular army.
His role as partisan ranger—a guerrilla—hadn’t been planned. During one of his frequent rides, he discovered that a Union telegraph office had been set up behind newly drawn battle lines. After Alexander overpowered and tied up the operator, his friend Daniel Ellsworth cut into the circuit using a ground wire. From intercepted messages, they learned of the transport of Confederate prisoners through Loudoun County. Alexander answered messages for the Yankee agent, giving false reports of troop movements to throw off the enemy and inflating Confederate troop numbers before the next battle. With Ellsworth’s knowledge of telegraph lines and Alexander’s natural military intellect, they began a series of clandestine forays that would eventually make him famous. No telegraph office in the Shenandoah Valley was safe from their trickery. Newspapers dubbed him the Gray Wraith due to his mastery of disguise and stealth. Commissioned in secret by the Secretary of War, Colonel Alexander Hunt walked a fine line, giving his handpicked men the necessary advantage to supply the Army of Northern Virginia. Because they would be nowhere near as effective ifhis identity became known, he and his rangers returned to their quiet lives between raids. But each day the subterfuge grew harder to maintain.
His parents frequently questioned his absences and were less than satisfied with his evasive replies. Alexander envied his men who returned to wives and children, but despite his attraction to the red-haired governess at his uncle’s home, he doubted marriage would ever be his destiny. Not that Emily Harrison would make a suitable wife, Northern or Southern. Pity the poor man who married that sharp-tongued, ill-tempered troublemaker.
On a lovely spring afternoon, as peepers created a frenzied tumult from the pond, Alexander was in no hurry to return to life in Front Royal. Because his father employed well-paid trainers, grooms, and jockeys, besides overseers and field hands to run his horse breeding operation, Alexander never felt essential at Hunt Farms. Only in the saddle in the backwoods did he feel part of something significant. He rode like a true Southern aristocrat after many summers of steeplechase in his youth. He and Phantom were two halves of one powerful whole. And that ability to handle a horse saved him in many close calls during his current identity.
Their last raid hadn’t yielded what he had hoped. The Union train from Alexandria contained only grain forage for livestock and a
His parents had all but given up hope of children when Alexanderwas born. He soon became his father’s pride and joy and the apple of his mother’s eye. But when he grew into a rebellious teenager, James Hunt sheltered his delicate wife from his rowdy behavior. Now that his father had grown old and troubled by a weakened heart, Alexander’s web of lies also included him. However, it was no longer schoolyard brawling that would bring shame to the Hunt family reputation. These days he was up to his neck in something that could send him to a Northern prison…or put him at the end of a hangman’s noose.
His mother had begged him not to join the Confederate Army during Jefferson Davis’s call for volunteers. She insisted he run the plantation due to his father’s poor health. Many in his social class resisted the impulse to enlist and fulfilled their patriotic duty in safer ways. Alexander had no desire for the tedium of camp life—the endless drills, marches to nowhere, and the stultifying boredom between battles. Following secession, he yearned to serve his fledging country, but not within the confines of the regular army.
His role as partisan ranger—a guerrilla—hadn’t been planned. During one of his frequent rides, he discovered that a Union telegraph office had been set up behind newly drawn battle lines. After Alexander overpowered and tied up the operator, his friend Daniel Ellsworth cut into the circuit using a ground wire. From intercepted messages, they learned of the transport of Confederate prisoners through Loudoun County. Alexander answered messages for the Yankee agent, giving false reports of troop movements to throw off the enemy and inflating Confederate troop numbers before the next battle. With Ellsworth’s knowledge of telegraph lines and Alexander’s natural military intellect, they began a series of clandestine forays that would eventually make him famous. No telegraph office in the Shenandoah Valley was safe from their trickery. Newspapers dubbed him the Gray Wraith due to his mastery of disguise and stealth. Commissioned in secret by the Secretary of War, Colonel Alexander Hunt walked a fine line, giving his handpicked men the necessary advantage to supply the Army of Northern Virginia. Because they would be nowhere near as effective ifhis identity became known, he and his rangers returned to their quiet lives between raids. But each day the subterfuge grew harder to maintain.
His parents frequently questioned his absences and were less than satisfied with his evasive replies. Alexander envied his men who returned to wives and children, but despite his attraction to the red-haired governess at his uncle’s home, he doubted marriage would ever be his destiny. Not that Emily Harrison would make a suitable wife, Northern or Southern. Pity the poor man who married that sharp-tongued, ill-tempered troublemaker.
On a lovely spring afternoon, as peepers created a frenzied tumult from the pond, Alexander was in no hurry to return to life in Front Royal. Because his father employed well-paid trainers, grooms, and jockeys, besides overseers and field hands to run his horse breeding operation, Alexander never felt essential at Hunt Farms. Only in the saddle in the backwoods did he feel part of something significant. He rode like a true Southern aristocrat after many summers of steeplechase in his youth. He and Phantom were two halves of one powerful whole. And that ability to handle a horse saved him in many close calls during his current identity.
Their last raid hadn’t yielded what he had hoped. The Union train from Alexandria contained only grain forage for livestock and a
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