1855 United States Tycoon

Chapter 97

After the war officially broke out in April 1861, the battlefield calmed down. This is mainly because the troops used for combat are not yet fully prepared. Now that the shaken states such as Virginia have completely fallen to the Union, Lincoln can let go of his hands and feet to reorganize the army according to his own ideas. So Lincoln issued a recruitment order, the first batch of 42,000 volunteers who served for three years were recruited. And 18,000 of them were first replenished to the navy.

General Winfield Scott, the commander of the Union Army, developed a plan for President Lincoln to resolve the South by force. According to his plan, the best prepared navy will block the Confederate Confederate first. The Confederacy does not have many own industries. Once it is tightly sealed, the cotton in their fields cannot be sold, and the urgently needed materials cannot be bought. As a result, the strength of the Confederate will quickly weaken, and the federal army will concentrate on capturing the Mississippi. Control of the river. Considering the huge advantage in the Navy and the powerful shipbuilding capabilities of the Federation, it is entirely possible to seize control of the Mississippi River. Once the Mississippi River is controlled, the Confederacy will be split in half. More importantly, the Union army can rely on river water transportation to launch attacks at any point along the Mississippi River, and the defenses of the coalition, which is not rich in manpower, will become more strained. At the same time, he also emphasized that there should be no rush to launch an attack on the capital of the Confederacy. Because he believes that the northern army is far from ready for such operations. Through this method of combat, the Union army will entangle the Confederate Confederacy like a boa constrictor, and finally suffocate it to Death.

As far as the battle itself is concerned, General Winfield Scott’s plan is excellent. In terms of the power balance between the North and the South, this method can indeed enable the North to defeat the South with a smaller loss. However, this method of warfare is indeed politically undesirable.

“Mr. MacDonald, I know that your Blackwater Company directly participated in the Italian War of Independence. I wonder what your experts think about the war?” At a reception at the White House, the new Secretary of the Army Stanton asked Scrooge.

Stanton, originally Buchanan’s attorney general, was invited to serve as Secretary of the Army after Lincoln became president. Scrooge had heard people mention this man, he was a tough, quick-witted person, and a very sharp-spoken guy. It is said that this guy even often referred to Lincoln as “the ape of Illinois.” Of course, if in a team, there is a guy with such a cheap mouth but who has been able to hold a high position steadily, then he is not a strong background, he must be outstanding. Scrooge had had some dealings with him before, and knew that he was actually an easy person to deal with, except for his bad temper. For example, when Spammer canned luncheon meat was added to the U.S. military’s munitions purchase list, he was quite cooperative. Of course, this may have something to do with one of his cousins ​​who worked for McDonald’s Food Company and owned shares.”Ah, Secretary Stanton.” Scrooge said, “I have discussed this issue with our experts. They both think that the federal army is not sufficiently prepared and it will be difficult to deal with the southern rebels in the short term. So our company has been They are all preparing for this war as a long-term war.”

“But Lincoln doesn’t seem to think so.” Stanton shook his head and said, “He is ready to let the troops attack the South. General McDowell will be in charge of the attack. He assured Lincoln that the Southern Army is vulnerable. ”

“Ah, Minister Stanton, you must know that the Southern Army may not be really vulnerable. You know, I have some channels for news in Europe. I heard that some southerners have bought a lot of them in Britain and France. The rifle was loaded—well, it was basically either an authorized copy of MacDonald’s 1857 or an illegally produced version—and then shipped back to the South by sea. The number may be as many as tens of thousands. Also, you know, Mike The Downer 1857 rifle has been publicly sold in North America for a long time. During this period, I don’t know how many southerners bought it. But our army is still using the front-loaded rifle. Oh my god, it’s just a shortfall. Times. In Italy, Italians who use rear-mounted rifles have confirmed the huge advantages of rear-mounted rifles over front-mounted rifles. However, our army still has no plan to equip such a rifle.”

“Mr. MacDonald, I also hope that the Army can be equipped with more advanced rear-mounted rifles. However, your rifle is too expensive, and Congress will not agree to buy such a rifle, at least not yet. If yours Rifles are as cheap as Spam. I can guarantee that we will buy these rifles.”

“How is this possible?” Scrooge said, “but I understand President Lincoln very well. The war has broken out for so long. In order to counter the rebellion, it is conscription and military spending. If there is no action at all, Congress can Promise? Can those Republican supporters agree? Since the money is invested, they always hope to hear a little movement. Besides, the rebels moved the capital to Richmond, which is too close to Washington, D.C. One point. Don’t you think? It’s not the style of the United States to look at the enemy right under their noses, but not to kill him. Moreover, many people think that even for the safety of Washington, they should take advantage of the Southerners. The foothold is not stable, and Richmond is taken down first. Because the distance between the two cities is a little more than 100 miles (the straight-line distance is actually less than 100 miles), it is really…” Speaking of this, Scoot Zhi suddenly thought that whether it was Lincoln or Davis in the south, maybe they could be regarded as the emperor guarding the country.

“So you are also a supporter of the Republican Party? Do you also want to hear something?”

“No, the noise can’t satisfy me, I hope to hear the roar.” Scrooge said, and raised the wine glass in his hand.

Scrooge did wait for the roar, and he didn’t wait long. In July, General McDowell announced that his army would start marching southward. He told reporters that he led a total of 35,000 heavily armed Union soldiers, and there were only more than 10,000 insurgents facing him. People are nothing but militiamen. He told reporters that his army would easily crush the rebels, thereby lifting the southern threat to the capital Washington. The general even told the reporters about the time of the dispatch of the troops and the place of the battle. As a result, the reporters naturally published all these in the newspapers. Since General McDowell promised that this battle would be easier to win than hunting, so reporters from various newspapers rented carriages and brought dry food when McDowell sent troops, planning to report on the federal army on the spot. Victory.

Not only reporters, but even some boring citizens regarded this battle as a hunting party. They took their own wives, dressed in costumes, took parasols, folding seats, and rode their own carriages, and set off with the army, ready to go. While watching a play, hold a picnic.

However, a day later, General McDowell’s troops were tumbling and returning from Virginia. According to the descriptions of the reporters who followed, the Union army and the rebels met at the Bull River. While attacking the stone bridge on the Bull River, the Federal Army forcibly crossed the Bull River downstream and attacked the enemy’s flanks. But there, they were hit hard by the southern rebels. The rebels in the south dug some trenches on the ground very cunningly, hid inside, only their heads exposed, and then used the Macdonald 1857 rifle and the federal army that was still using the backward Springfield 1855 front-mounted rifle. Opposite shot. The Union army lined up in a neat formation and launched five consecutive brave and fearless attacks on the enemy’s position, but for well-known reasons-the range and rate of fire of the McDonald’s 1857 rifle far exceeded any front-mounted rifle, so They are simply advancing in the rain of bullets. Every step forward, countless soldiers will be killed. A batch of troops that had hit the enemy’s position had been wounded and killed. The Union army dropped nearly a thousand bodies in front of the enemy’s defensive positions, and still was unable to make any progress. In the afternoon, Confederate reinforcements arrived, and the comparison between the numbers of the two sides suddenly reversed. Confederate reinforcements attacked from the side. Many of these rebels were also equipped with advanced Macdonald 1857. The power of their salvos made the Union army completely unstoppable. If it were not for the containment of cavalry units, plus sudden It rains torrentially from the sky, and if it doesn’t do it well, the federal army will even be surrounded and annihilated by the rebels.

This big defeat immediately caused an uproar in public opinion. Various media in Washington have asked why the federal army was defeated so miserably?

“Hello, Diana, do you have today’s newspaper?” Scrooge came to own’s office early in the morning, and the female secretary Diana immediately made him a cup of black tea.

Compared to coffee, Scrooge still prefers tea, perhaps because of the legacy of his previous life. And under the influence of Queen Victoria, in this era, drinking black tea is more important than drinking coffee.

“Ah, yes, Mr. MacDonald, I’ll go and bring it to you.” Diana put down the teacup and turned to go out. After a while, she hugged a lot of newspapers and walked in.

“Mr. MacDonald, these newspapers have reports on this battle. I put them all in which we mentioned our rifles.”

“Okay, thank you, Diana, you are so careful.” Scrooge opened a newspaper with the headline: “Who is to blame for the huge advantage of the rebels?”

Looking through several newspapers, Scrooge found that there were not many newspapers accusing the Own company of selling a large number of weapons to the southern rebels, and even accusing Own’s guns of being too expensive for the federal army to be unable to equip them. The few newspapers that accuse McDonald’s Infantry Weapons Company are just inconspicuous, influential little newspapers.

“Well, it seems that the work done in the media before is still very effective.” Scrooge nodded, thinking like this.

Since Scrooge’s company was not the target of scolding, Lincoln’s government naturally became the main target. Looking at the content of these articles, some questions like this are indispensable at the end:

“Why do the rebels know that they need to prepare the most sophisticated weapons for their soldiers, but our government only gives them the cheapest weapons? Can our soldiers’ lives be less than the price gap? Why are the major countries in the world? When all the rifles were installed after the conversion, our state-owned gun factory was still producing outdated old goods? Why can fools who should have been sent to the psychiatric hospital abandon treatment but still become generals? Is this? Isn’t it an institutional problem? Where are the taxes we paid? What is going on in this country? I can’t help but fall into deep thinking.”