The Qing Dynasty is about to end

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

Gettysburg, June 1861, 6.

The morning mist had not yet dissipated, and Robert Lee had already stood on a small hill southwest of Gettysburg, holding up a brass telescope to observe the smoke columns rising from the northern railway lines. The dew soaked his gray tweed uniform, but he was unaware.

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

Five paces away, Russian cavalry colonel Peter Voronin was riding his warhorse, squinting at the church spire looming in the mist. His Don horse had half of its left ear missing, shot off by a British 1853 Enfield rifle at the Battle of Balaklava during the Ninth Russo-Turkish War.

In that battle, the industrialized British army used their sophisticated firearms to severely teach the Cossack cavalry, who were still stuck in the serfdom era. Voronin lost half of his good brothers!

At this moment, he was looking at the morning mist in the distance, as if he had returned to the Crimean semi-battlefield that made him feel sad whenever he thought about it!
But this time, the camp he belongs to is even more backward than his motherland Russia, where serfdom is considered an "advanced system"! And their enemy is the world's second largest industrial country with a population (only counting white people) three times larger than theirs!
And those slave owners who haven't even figured out serfdom actually feel pretty good about themselves and think they can win. What a bunch of reactionaries!
"How many people are there in the Northern Army?" asked Peter Voronin, who spoke fluent French without a Russian accent.

"Seventy thousand, most of them are newly conscripted militiamen, inadequately trained."

Robert Lee answered respectfully that as a slave owner, he would not dare to act like a commander in front of this "foreign colonel" who came from an advanced feudal country and had fought in two Russo-Turkish wars.

Peter Voronin sneered: "But they have a powerful industrial country. If we can't destroy them, they will become a tough opponent in a year."

Robert Lee did not respond. He turned to the messenger and ordered: "According to the plan, let Ewell's division feint to attack Gettysburg to attract the main force of the Union Army!"

Then he said to Voronin: "If we wait until they are nailed to the ground in the town and then outflank them, they won't live to see the next year!"

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

Sherman stood on the railroad north of Gettysburg, looking at the black smoke rising in the distance - that was the signal for the Confederate Army to bombard the town. The soles of his boots were stained with coal slag beside the railroad tracks, and in his uniform pocket was a handful of roasted corn kernels from a Pennsylvania farmer's house. It was great to transport troops by train. He boarded the train from Harrisburg, lay in a sleeper car, ate roasted corn kernels while "marching", and even took a nap while swaying.

"Li wants to lure us into town," he said to his staff while chewing a roasted corn kernel, "but we won't be fooled."

He pointed heavily on the map: "The First and Second Armies advance along the railway line, and the Third Army holds Little Round Top Mountain. All artillery is deployed to bombard the right wing of the Confederate Army. Don't be reluctant to waste the shells, we have plenty, and we can even transport them by train!"

Pennsylvania's industrial area was right behind them, and there were dense railway lines that could transport troops, ammunition, and weapons, so they could fight with artillery shells. Sherman would never let his men fight with bayonets.

The staff officers were a little worried. A young officer hesitated and said, "General, the terrain along the railway is open, and the Confederate cavalry may..."

"Confederate cavalry?" Sherman sneered. "Their cavalry can only bully Indians and Mexicans. How can they possibly charge our trains?" He turned to the artillery commander and said, "Move all the 12-pounders to the railway line. I want to show Lee what unlimited ammunition means!"

He did not notice that Voronin's Cossack cavalry had quietly circled into the woods on the left wing of the Northern Army. The Cossacks wrapped sackcloth around their horses' hooves and bit wood chips in their mouths to prevent noise, just like a group of elusive Siberian wolves.

At 12:17 p.m., the soldiers of the Third Regiment of the First Army of the Union Army were slowly advancing along the railroad line. Private Wilson could hear the sound of his steel canteen colliding with the sling of his rifle, which was particularly clear in the eerie silence.

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

A strange whistling sound suddenly broke through the air. It was not a military bugle call, nor was it any common sound in North America - the sound reminded Wilson of the screams of hawks he had heard at the zoo when he was a child.

In the cornfield on the east side of the railway, the golden stalks suddenly fell down in large pieces. Three thousand Cossack cavalrymen poured out like a black tide.

"Oh my God!" Wilson's comrade raised his gun and was chopped off half of his head by a curved saber. Blood splattered on the rails, immediately attracting swarms of flies.

Voronin rode his Don horse and led the charge himself. His saber was stained with blood, but his face was expressionless, as if he was just carrying out an ordinary routine mission.

"Hura!" The Cossacks' war cry shattered the defenses of the Northern Army. Unlike the Southern cavalry, they did not form neat charging formations, but were divided into dozens of flexible wedge-shaped squads, each of which was like a sharp dagger, accurately stabbing at the weak points of the Northern Army's defenses.

At 7 p.m., Sherman, who was caught off guard by the sudden attack of the Cossacks, finally realized that the situation was not good. However, he did not immediately choose to admit defeat and retreat - after all, he had troops under his command! And the Little Round Top Mountain outside Gettysburg was still in the hands of Sherman's Third Army.

However, the Confederate artillery fire had already begun to cover the top of the hill! Robert Lee's 80 Napoleon cannons had already moved into position while Voronin's Cossack cavalry repeatedly charged the Union front line, and began to rain shells on the top of the hill and the Union train at the foot of the hill.

Suddenly, a shell hit the Union Army's ammunition truck, instantly detonating the ammunition that had not yet been unloaded. The huge power of the explosion immediately wiped out two companies of Sherman's men who were transporting ammunition there, and also blew up another company that was covering the ammunition truck.

Voronin's Russian infantrymen, veterans of two years of fighting the British, French, and Taiping armies on the Crimean Peninsula, began to advance up the hill. Unlike the Americans on the battlefield, they did not line up in the old-fashioned horizontal and vertical formations, but instead moved up in loose lines, under the cover of smoke bombs, step by step, and sniped Union officers with Minié rifles.

A colonel of the Union Army was standing on a rock giving orders when suddenly a bloody flower burst out from his chest and he fell on his back, dying without even a scream.

"Sniper!" someone screamed.

But no one knew where the bullet came from, and the Union Army infantry regiment, which had lost its commander, immediately fell into chaos.

The shouts of "Ura! Ura!" penetrated the thick smoke and rushed towards the frightened Northern Army.

However, Voronin's Russian infantry consisted of only 2000 men, which was still not enough to defeat the Northern Army of up to 7 men.

When Sherman realized the situation was not good, he immediately mobilized a full division of reinforcements to fight back. Relying on his overwhelming numerical advantage, he forced the Russian army back and temporarily stabilized Little Round Top Mountain.

But the balance of victory and defeat on the battlefield had now seriously tilted towards the Southern Army.

In order to reverse the decline, Sherman decided to make a last-ditch effort. He sent a division of the Union Army to sneak into the town of Gettysburg. As long as he could occupy the town, Sherman would have a chance to repel the Confederate Army, otherwise he would have to retreat to Harrisburg. However, the Union Army that rushed into the town in a column was soon shot and killed by the Confederate hunters who entered in advance!

These rich young men from Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina were all good hunters, and their marksmanship was much better than those new recruits from the factories. They soon killed the Northern Army division and caused heavy losses!

At 4:20 p.m., the northern slope of Little Round Top Mountain had become a slaughterhouse. Sherman had finally ordered his troops to retreat northward along the railway line 20 minutes ago. The soldiers of the 5th Regiment of the 3rd Army of the Union Army were lying in the cracks of the granite to guard the rear.

"Reload!" Captain Hudson's voice was already hoarse. His left ear had been deafened by the Confederate artillery shells half an hour ago, and now he could only barely hear the whistling sound of bullets with his right ear.

Private Green shivered as he stuffed the paper shell into the barrel, only to find that his thumb had been burned by the barrel and blistered. When he looked up, he saw the gray figures moving silently down the hillside—soldiers of the Alaska Company Infantry Regiment took turns to cover each other with mechanical precision, and the muzzles of Minié rifles flashed with muzzle flames from time to time.

"Damn those Southerners, they actually invited us here." Before Green could finish his words, a bullet had already pierced his forehead accurately.
Three hundred yards away, the Russian sniper Vasily slowly put away his Minié rifle and retracted behind a boulder.

Behind him, the Confederate Army's charge bugle call resounded throughout the battlefield - Brigadier General Robert Lee, who discovered that the Union Army had begun to retreat, finally deployed all his forces to launch a general attack!

As night fell, the taverns in Gettysburg were filled with Confederate officers. The aroma of whiskey mixed with the smell of blood and gunpowder, forming a peculiar smell of victory.

罗伯特·李站在酒馆二楼的露台上。他手中握着刚刚收到的战损和战果报告：阵亡3500余人，伤5500余人，其中俄国雇佣军的伤亡总数超过800而北军的损失大约是南军的1.5-2倍。

Behind him, Voronin was cleaning the blood off his saber with vodka, the alcohol running down the blood grooves on the blade and forming a small red puddle on the oak floor.

"Colonel," Robert Lee suddenly asked, "How do you think we fought today?"

The Russian paused, the tip of his knife hovering over the puddle. "In Crimea, we call this a 'respite from bloodshed.'" He raised his bottle and took a sip. "When the sun rises tomorrow, the factories in the north will be churning out more guns."

Suddenly, a faint sound of a steam locomotive whistle was heard in the distance. It was the Union Army boarding the train to retreat to Harrisburg. Although the Union Army had lost the battle, they had not lost the strength to retreat. The Union Army marching by train retained more physical strength than their opponents.

Moreover, they cleanly abandoned all their baggage and heavy weapons, even their rations, when they retreated. The Confederate Army, which had marched all the way from Washington and fought hard for an entire afternoon, was exhausted after chasing the enemy for less than ten miles and had to withdraw its troops to Gettysburg.

As for attacking Harrisburg and completely driving the Northern Army out of the area south of the Blue Mountains and the Susquehanna River, it would probably take another battle or even two more to achieve this. The South's national strength was limited and it was impossible to launch consecutive battles. It would take at least a month or two to rest and replenish and expand its troops to 70,000 or 80,000 before it could fight the next battle.
At this moment, General Li suddenly realized that this victory was as fragile as the telegram in his hand and could be blown away by the night wind at any time.

(End of this chapter)