The guerrilla is a force mutliplier.

“Quantrill believed that guerrilla warfare was superior. Guerrilla warfare empowered the individual man. It offered soldiers a chance to fight close to home, eat home-cooked food, wear sturdy, comfortable well-fitted homemade clothes, ride a horse, choose their weaponry, and make tactical decisions for themselves.

Partisan warfare was more in accord with expectations of white men in the antebellum South than "conventional" or "regular" warfare, which stripped men of their identities and rights.”

A Man by Any Other Name: William Clarke Quantrill and the Search for American Manhood by Joseph M. Beilein Jr.