Ashby was a host in himself.

He had often ridden as much as eighty miles a day to inspect his own pickets and those of the enemy, and it was told of him that he had once gone inside the Union lines in the disguise of a horse doctor.
The Northern cavalry, unused to the saddle, compared very badly with those of the South in the early years of the war.

Ashby's men, moreover, rode over country that they had known all their lives.

There was no forest footpath, no train among the hills hidden from them.

But the cannon of Jackson's army was inferior.