Chapter 713 When the sun rises tomorrow, factories in the north will build more guns and cannons

Gettysburg, June 15, 1861.

Before the morning mist had dissipated, Robert Lee was already standing on the small high ground southwest of Gettysburg, holding a brass telescope to observe the smoke columns rising from the northern railway line. The dew soaked his ash military uniform, but he didn't realize it.

"Sheerman has taken the bait." He put down his telescope and said to the Russian commander beside him. "His main force is coming to Gettysburg by train."

Five steps away from him, Russian cavalry Colonel Peter Voronen was riding on a war horse, squinting his eyes to observe the church spire looming in the mist. Half of his Pitton hippo's left ear was shot away by the British army in the Battle of Balaclava in the Ninth Russian-Turkish War with the 1853 Enfield rifled rifled.

In that battle, the British army in the industrial era used their fine guns to teach the Cossack cavalry who were still in the serfdom era. Voronin lost half of his good brothers!

At this moment, he looked at the morning mist in the distance, as if he had returned to the half-battlefield of Crimea that made him feel distressed when he thought of it!

But this time, his camp was even more backward than his Russian motherland, and serfdom was considered an "advanced system" here! And their enemy was a world's second industrial country with a population (only white people) three times more than them!

And those slave owners who hadn't even understood the serfdom actually felt good about themselves and thought they could win. They were really a group of reactionaries!

"How many people were there in the Northern Army?" asked Peter Voronin, speaking very fluently in French without a Russian accent.

"Seventy thousand, most of them were newly recruited militias and were undertrained."

Robert Lee responded respectfully that in front of this "foreign colonel" who came from an advanced serfdom and fought two Russian-Turkish wars, Robert Lee, the slave owner, did not dare to take the airs of the commander.

Peter Voronin sneered: "But they have a powerful industrial nation. If we cannot destroy them, they will become difficult opponents in a year."

Robert Lee did not respond. He turned around and ordered the messenger: "As planned, let Ewell's division feint to attack Gettysburg Town and attract the main force of the Northern Army!"

Then he said to Voronin: "When they are crucified in the town, we will not live next year if we encircle them from the flank!"

Voronin took over Robert Lee's words: "Leave the encirclement task to me. Even if they don't enter the town, my Cossack boy can clean them up!"

Sherman stood on the railway line north of Gettysburg, looking at the black smoke rising in the distance - a signal that the Southern Army was bombarding the town. His boots were covered with cinders beside the rails, and his military uniform was carrying a handful of fried corn kernels that came from the Pennsylvania farmer's house. It was so good to transport troops by train. He got on the train from Harrisburg, lay in a sleeper car, "marching" while eating fried corn kernels, and slept for a night.

"Li wanted to lead us into the town." He chewed a fried corn kernel and said to the staff, "but we are not fooled."

He was a little heavy on the map: "The First Army and the Second Army advance along the railway line, and the Third Army defended the Xiaodounting Mountain. All artillery was deployed to bombard the right wing of the Southern Army. Don't be reluctant to let go of artillery shells, we have some, and there are trains to transport!"

The industrial zone in Pennsylvania is behind it, and there are dense railway lines that can transport troops, ammunition and weapons, so she can compete in cannonballs. Sherman will never let his men fight for bayonets.

The staff members were a little worried. A young officer hesitated: "General, the terrain along the railway is wide, and the Southern cavalry may..."

"Southern cavalry?" Sherman sneered, "Their cavalry will bully the Indians and Mexicans, how could they rush to our train?" He turned to the artillery commander, "Transfer all the twelve-pound cannons along the railway line, I want Li to taste what infinite shells are!"

He did not notice that Voronin's Cossacks had quietly circled into the woods on the left wing of the Northern Army. The Cossacks wrapped in linen on horse hooves and bit wood chips in their mouths to prevent sound, like a group of elusive Siberian wolf.

At 12:17 noon, the soldiers of the Third Regiment of the First Army of the Northern Army were slowly advancing along the railway line. Private Wilson could hear the sound of his steel kettle colliding with the rifle strap, which seemed particularly clear in the strange silence.

"Keep the formation!" The company commander's voice came from the front, "Pay attention to the sides."

A strange whistle suddenly slashed through the air. It was not a war horn, nor any common sound on the North American continent—the sound reminded Wilson of the whistle of the hawks he heard at the zoo when he was a child.

In the cornfield on the east side of the railway, golden straw suddenly fell down in pieces. Three thousand Cossack cavalry gulfs poured out like black tides.

"Oh God!" As soon as Wilson raised his gun, half of his head was cut off by an arc sabre. Blood splattered on the rails, attracting flocks of flies.

Voronin rode his hippo and led the team to charge. His saber was covered in blood, but his face was expressionless, as if he was just performing a very ordinary routine mission.

"Ula!" The war cry of the Cossacks shattered the defense line of the Northern Army. They did not line up in neat storm-lines like the southern cavalry, but were divided into dozens of flexible wedge-shaped squads, each of which was like a sharp dagger, accurately stabbing the weak points of the Northern Army's defense line.

At one o'clock in the afternoon, the Cossack who suddenly broke out and caught her off guard, Sherman finally realized that the situation was not good. However, he did not immediately choose to admit defeat and retreat - he had an army of 70,000 under his command! Moreover, the small Dome Mountain outside Gettysburg Town is still in the hands of the Third Army under Sherman.

However, the artillery fire of the Southern Army has begun to cover the hills!

Robert Lee's 80 Napoleonic cannons took advantage of the repeated charge of the Northern Army's Cossack cavalry of Voronin, and had already moved in place and began to smash shells into the top and the Northern Army trains at the foot of the mountain like raindrops.

Suddenly, a shell hit the Northern Army's ammunition truck, instantly detonating the ammunition that had not been removed. The huge power of the explosion reimbursed Sherman's two companies - they were carrying ammunition there and bombing another company covering the ammunition truck to the point of falling.

The Russian infantry of Voronin - those who had fought hard on the Crimean Peninsula with the British, French and Taiping Army for two years - began to advance to the mountains. Instead of standing in old-fashioned straits and shooting them in line, they pulled out loose straggler lines, climbed up step by step under the cover of smoke bombs, and they would also accurately snipe the Northern Army officers with Miner rifles.

A colonel commander of the Northern Army stood on the rock to command, and suddenly a bloody flower burst out in his chest, fell down on his back, and died without even making a scream.

"Sniper!" someone screamed next to him.

But no one knew where the bullets flew from. The Northern Army Infantry Regiment, which had lost the command of the regiment commander, suddenly fell into chaos.

The shouts of "Ula!Ula!" penetrated the smoke of gunpowder and rushed towards the panic Northern Army.

However, Voroning's Russian infantry had only 2,000 people, which was still not enough to defeat the Northern Army with a population of up to 70,000.

When Sherman found that the situation was not good, he immediately mobilized a large division of reinforcements and rushed forward. With the overwhelming advantage of the number of people, he forced the Russian army to retreat and temporarily stabilized the Little Dome Mountain.

But the balance of victory and defeat on the battlefield was already seriously biased towards the Southern Army.

In order to reverse the decline, Sherman decided to make a last attempt. He divided the Northern Army into Gettysburg Town. As long as he could occupy this town, Sherman would have a chance to repel the Southern Army, otherwise he would have to retreat to Harrisburg. However, these Northern Army, which were lined up to rush into the town, were soon shot and killed by Southern Army hunters who entered early!

These rich children from Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina are all good hunters, and their marksmanship is much better than those newly recruits from the Northern Army who just came out of the factory. Soon they killed the Northern Army advisor and suffered heavy losses!

At 4:20 pm, the northern slope of Little Dome Mountain had become a slaughterhouse. Twenty minutes ago, Sherman finally ordered the troops to retreat north along the railway line. The soldiers of the Fifth Regiment of the Third Army of the Northern Army were lying in the cracks in granite to take charge of the rear.

"Recharge!" Company Commander Hudson's voice was hoarse. His left ear was deafened by the Southern Army's artillery shells half an hour ago. Now he could only barely hear the whistling of bullets on his right ear.

Private Green shivered and stuffed the paper shell into the barrel, but found that his thumb was blistered by the gun chamber. When he looked up, he saw the gray figures moving silently below the hillside. The soldiers of the Alaska Infantry Regiment alternately covering like mechanically, and the muzzle of the Minnier rifle flashed from time to time.

"Damn the Southern, they actually invited it." Green couldn't finish his words, and a bullet had accurately penetrated his eyebrows.

Three hundred yards away, Russian sniper Vasily slowly put away the Minie gun in his hand and retracted a huge rock.

Behind him, the Southern Army's charge of the warship had resounded throughout the battlefield - Brigadier General Robert Lee, who found that the Northern Army had begun to retreat, finally invested all his troops and launched a general attack!

When night fell, Gettysburg's tavern was filled with Southern Army officers. The mellow whiskey mixed with blood and gunpowder smelled, forming a strange atmosphere of victory.

Robert Lee stood on the terrace on the second floor of the tavern. He held the report of war losses and results he had just received: more than 3,500 people were killed and more than 5,500 were injured, of which the total number of casualties of the Russian mercenaries exceeded 800, while the losses of the Northern Army were about 1.5-2 times that of the Southern Army.

Behind him, Voronin was using vodka to clean the blood on the saber. Alcohol flowed down the blood trough of the blade and accumulated into a small red puddle on the oak floor.

"Colin," Robert Lee suddenly spoke, "How do you think we are fighting today?"

The Russian stopped and the tip of the knife hung above the puddle: "In Crimea, we call this 'the breath of blood'." He raised his bottle and sipped, "When the sun rises tomorrow, factories in the north will build more guns."

Suddenly, a faint whistle of a steam locomotive came from a distance. It was the Northern Army boarding the train to retreat to Harrisburg. Although the Northern Army lost the battle, they did not lose the strength to retreat. The Northern Army marched by train retained more physical strength than their opponents.

Moreover, when they retreated, they abandoned all their supplies and heavy weapons, and even their food rations could be abandoned. They walked all the way from Washington and fought hard for the afternoon of the Southern Army. After chasing less than ten miles, they were exhausted and had to withdraw their troops and return to Gettysburg.

As for attacking Harrisburg and completely driving the Northern Army out of the south of the Blue Mountains and the Susquehanna River, it is probably possible to fight again or even twice before it can be achieved. The southern country has limited national strength and it is impossible to launch a battle in a row. At least one or two months have to rest and replenish the troops and expand them to 70,000 to 80,000 before another battle can be fought.

At this time, General Li suddenly realized that this victory was as light as the telegram in his hand at this moment, and could be blown away by the night wind at any time.
Chapter completed!