Note: The full text is about 3,000 words, and patience is required to read
People who like to travel always want to have a travel companion, and for the former "knights", his travel companion is the "war horse" he sat on.
Since the beginning of the independence of the first thirteen states in North America in 1776, the United States has been advertised as a "commoner", especially on the sparsely populated North American continent, after the "knightly tradition" of Europe was transmitted to the United States, it was not a group of rude cowboys who were mostly fearless, fearless, and unsparing; but this did not mean that there were no real, "European-style" knights in the United States; on April 18, 1861, the United States, the country's most famous, can also be regarded The "Last Knight" and his traveling companions left the comfortable manor and embarked on a tragic expedition; the story began on that bright Thursday morning of that spring ~ there were only a few floating clouds in the blue sky, and the fresh air wafted with the fragrance of flowers, and at about 9 o'clock in the morning, the man rode down the heights of Arlington, walked up the long bridge over the Potomac River, and walked slowly toward Washington.
There were no other pedestrians on the road, and this "knight" was wearing the uniform of the rank of colonel in the U.S. Army at that time, sitting upright on the saddle with his upper body, the reins were held very casually in his hand, and he was a skilled rider at first glance; if according to today's parlance, the Americans of the 19th century and the 50s and 60s selected the sexiest man, Both men and women will unanimously identify this 54-year-old knight ~ he is about 1.8CM tall, weighs about 77 kilograms, and has only had a minor illness in adulthood, with black hair and gray, brown glasses, a long and straight nose, tight lips, and a very calm expression.
The enchanting scenery of the roadside did not attract the hearty knight, let alone on this road he had walked hundreds of times; before he knew it, he came to Washington, and the first thing he saw was the then unfinished Capitol building— when Washington, D.C. was still a dirty town, and the roadside was full of cow, pig, and sheep feces, and all kinds of garbage and dead animals floated along the canal that flowed through Washington from Capitol Hill to the back of the White House, "honing" the stomach of the residents around the White House day after day Washington, which had always been noisy, was even more chaotic at this time, like a barracks with lax military discipline: because just 6 days earlier, the Confederate army had shelled The Sumut Fortress, President Lincoln had declared a rebellion in the South, he had recruited an army of about 75,000 men to start a counterinsurgency war, and an American Civil War had officially begun; in just a few days, military tents were set up on the grass everywhere in Washington City, and gun guards were stationed at various major intersections, and a war was coming.
The knight turned from 14th Street to Pennsylvania Avenue, and the guards along the way saluted him—it was clear that the colonel was highly known even in the Capital of the United States, where high-ranking officers were at the time; the knight dismounted at 1651 Pennsylvania Avenue, a yellow house opposite the White House at the time, and he had just tied up his horse and the owner inside had already greeted him.
The owner of the house was Francis Blair, President Lincoln's main supporter in Congress and chairman of the Congressional Major Military Action Committee; Blair invited him to the drawing room, beckoned him to sit down, and asked directly: "Colonel Robert E. Lee, Mr. President is desperate to get an answer today, do you agree to be commander-in-chief of the Union Army?" ”
The corners of Robert E.E.'s mouth twitched imperceptibly~ although he was prepared, Blair's words stirred up a wild wave in his heart; because if he nodded, he could immediately command the largest army in The history of the United States, and he could become a "two-star general" of the U.S. army at that time, like his grandfather and father; in this way, the famous Lee family in the short history of the United States has produced another general star , that is, General Robert Lee, and for this day, He's been waiting for 32 years.
Robert E. Lee, who was still a colonel at the time, spoke, and his tone was calm: "Thank you President Lincoln for trusting me, but at this particular moment, I cannot accept this request; the legislators of my hometown, Virginia, are meeting in Richmond to debate whether to secede from the Union; I personally can only pray that God will not let Virginia secede from the Union, but whatever the outcome, I must serve Virginia and fight for Virginia, because I was born Virginia. And I'll always be a Virginian. ”
Blair was disappointed, but he understood Lee's choice; Lee then walked to the government war department next door and found his old boss, a friend of fifteen years, and then the commander-in-chief of the U.S. Army, General Winfield Scott, who had sent him to Washington; Lee told Scott about Blair's proposal and his choice, causing the veteran general, who was already 75 years old at the time, to let out a long sigh.
Like Robert E. Lee, Scott, who was also born in Virginia, was a symbol of the U.S. military, having been at the helm of the U.S. military for 47 years, going through 14 U.S. governments from Jefferson to Lincoln; he personally commanded the U.S. army to conquer Mexico City and win the Mexican War; in 1852, when the Whigs nominated him as a presidential candidate, but lost to Pierce because his views against slavery did not gain support in the South In 1855 Congress passed a special clause granting Scott the rank of three-star general, making him the second American general after Washington to receive this rank; since the Beginning of the American Civil War, General Scott knew that he was too old to lead his army to the battlefield, so he proposed to Lincoln the establishment of commander-in-chief of the Confederate Army, with Robert E. Lee as the candidate; Lincoln had no objection to this, because Robert E. Lee was recognized as the best soldier in the United States at that time.
"Lee," Scott could only shake his head incessantly and regretfully: "This is the biggest mistake of your life, but I think it can only be like this." Lee looked at the distressed old boss, unable to say much, and had to say goodbye; but neither of them thought at the time that this was their last side.
Then Robert Lycema left Washington, and when he walked up the long bridge in Washington again, many newsboys were shouting on the bridge: "Read the newspaper and read the newspaper, Virginia officially announced its secession from the Union and joined the Confederacy!" Read the newspaper, read the newspaper..."
Robert E. Lee stopped his horse, bought a newspaper from the newsboy, read it hurriedly, and then went on; Scott stood at the window, first watching Robert E. Lee's fading figure, and then at Arlington Heights in the distance, still shaking his head; of course, neither Colonel Robert E. Nord nor General Scott at this time had imagined that such a seemingly simple choice would be so costly in the war that followed.
For the Americans, if the War of Independence from 1775 to 1783 gave them independence, then the Civil War from 1861 to 1865 gave them a real country; the American Civil War not only answered the question of whether the states should remain in one country, but also answered the question of whether the country could continue to maintain "half of the people free and the other half were slaves"; for these two answers and results, more than 620,000 people died in the entire American Civil War Among them, more than 360,000 were officers and soldiers of the Northern Army, and more than 260,000 people died in the battle were officers and soldiers of the Confederate Army; and in addition to this civil war, the total number of deaths in the United States in foreign wars was only more than 648,000.
In addition, the Confederate Army alone had more than 275,000 wounded in the Civil War, which exceeded the total number of more than 230,000 wounded in the American Revolutionary War; in addition, the American Civil War also indirectly caused uncountable civilian casualties and property damage, and the southern states of the United States, led by Virginia, basically became ruins, especially the birthplace of the pre-war rich American colony, that is, The birthplace of the Rich American Colony, that is, The hometown of Robert E. Lee and Scott, Virginia, which became a battlefield for killing between the two sides; after the American Civil War, The kind of American manor-style life that originated in Europe completely ceased to exist; later Sherman burned Atlanta, which I will describe in detail in a later article; but the "fire" that Sherman put out burned not only the city of Atlanta, but also the way of life in the South of the United States at that time; Sherman's burning of Atlanta was just a piece of the puzzle in the war of the American Civil War; today the American Civil War is reviewed again, causing all this. Much depended on the choice made by Robert E. Lee himself on the morning of April 18, 1861.
Without the presence of this man, the situation in the American Civil War would have been unpredictable; if the South had not had him, because the Confederate Army had overwhelming superiority in strength, the war was estimated to have ended in the summer of 1862; if Robert E. Lee had accepted Lincoln's appointment, the North would have required only a strategic march to Richmond, estimating that at least 500,000 fewer americans would have died on both sides; and the Reason why the South of the United States would have been able to hold out until 1865 It is precisely because of the presence of Robert E. Lee that during the three years of his army, Lee was always at an absolute disadvantage, but again and again he flipped from desperate situations, turned over salted fish, and pushed Lincoln to the brink of suicide several times; due to the disparity in strength between the north and the south, Robert Lee's final defeat was inevitable, but his achievement was that he was able to persist for so long; this also coincided with the old saying of the Chinese soldiers: "A thousand armies are easy to obtain, and one will be difficult to find." ”
Let's not comment on the current United States & U.S. army, but in the previous period, Robert E. Lee's image in the minds of American soldiers is irreplaceable, such as General Pershing, the supreme commander of the U.S. army in Europe during World War I, who imitated Robert E. Lee everywhere; and the grandson of a Colonel of the Confederate Army under Robert E. Lee is the famous general Patton during the US Army in World War II; Patton's armored tactics that many military fans in later generations relished, are born from Robert E.S. Lee's mixed offensive tactics During the American Civil War, One of Robert E.E.S. Lee's opponents, the son of the "doll general" of the Union Army, the Douglas MacArthur, who once surpassed the President of the United States , the House of Representatives , and the Joint Chiefs of Staff , was determined to take Robert E. Lee as an example in his life from an early age; in the hearts of these famous generals in the U.S. Army, Robert E. Lee was not only not a "traitor", but the greatest hero in American military history, the greatest general & knight in this country.
Before Trump, the "strange" american, was elected president of the United States, the vast majority of Americans in the past and even today were "understanding" of the choice made by Robert E. Lee on April 18, 1861, because in Robert E.E.'s time, the loyalty of the military was first dedicated to his hometown, not the so-called "American" concept of the state; this is just like Robert E. Lee's father, a love general who served under Washington, "light riding" Lee said: Virginia is my "homeland."
This is actually the real side behind the so-called "American-style freedom & democracy" - because there has never been a real "freedom & democracy"; the so-called "democracy & freedom" has always been limited, not infinite; especially in the United States, which from the beginning of its founding roots, is actually only between the various "door valves" of the first thirteen North American states, and the various "vertical and horizontal" countries.
(Image from the Internet)
@Headlines Military