The generation of a high-energy electron bunch is studied by using an intense fs TEM(1, 0) mode laser in vacuum. We perform three-dimensional particle simulations in which the relativistic equation of motion is solved with an analytically expressed laser field. In this paper, we found that electrons are accelerated longitudinally and confined in the transverse direction by a ponderomotive force of an intense short pulse TEM(1, 0) mode laser. Using a TEM(1, 0) mode laser of 1017 W cm−2, the electrons are successfully trapped in the polarized direction and accelerated to the order of tens of megaelectronvolts with an acceleration gradient of about gigaelectronvolts per metre. The electron bunch generated has a small emittance in the transverse and longitudinal directions, and the spatial size of the electron bunch is about several hundred micrometres in each direction with a high electron number density. This electron acceleration mechanism may open a new engineering world towards a point radiation source, a precise measurement, applications to material sciences, and so on.