2.8.1 Lesson: "A Horseman in the Sky" - Review Questions

The sentinel was guarding a road. Explain in one sentence why that road is strategically important.

The road is strategically important because it's in the way of the enemy camp, which the troops of the sentinel would enter in a surprise attack.

We get to know it in the following excerpt:

" ( ...) concealed in the forest at the bottom of that military rat-trap, in which half a hundred men in possession of the exits might have starved an army to submission, lay five regiments of Federal infantry. They had marched all the previous day and night and were resting. At nightfall they would take to the road again, climb to the place where their unfaithful sentinel now slept, and descending the other slope of the ridge fall upon a camp of the enemy at about midnight. Their hope was to surprise it, for the road led to the rear of it. In case of failure, their position would be perilous in the extreme; and fall they surely would should accident or vigilance apprise the enemy of the movement."

The road is strategically important because it leads to the enemy camp that troops enters sentimentally to surprise the attackers.

Explanation:

The bottom of the military trap that is possessed by a hundred men that starves the army since it has five regiments of the infantry of the federal. All the army troops were resting since they had matched the entire night. So they were waiting for the night to take the road once again and climb to the places that unfaithful sentinels were sleeping however their hope was taken by surprise since the path they followed led to a rear place.