1850 American Gold Tycoon

Chapter 679 The Southern Army Wins First

June 10, 1861, the town of Manassas, Virginia.

For the past month, this small town, less than 25 miles from the capital of the Northern Federation, has been the focus of the battle between the north and the south of the Eastern Front.

The two sides deployed an army of more than 30,000 people in the town of Manassas to compete for the town of only two or three thousand before the war.

The reason why the north and the south are so persistent in fighting for control of Manassas is not only that Manassas is very close to the capitals of both sides, but also because it is the most important railway hub in Virginia.

The Alexander-Harrisburg Railway and the American Southern Railway meet here. These rail lines connect Washington, DC with major cities in the south (such as Richmond), and play a crucial role in the mobilization of materials and military forces.

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If the Northern Army controls Manassas Town, it can cut off the supply line of the Southern Army and prevent the troops from gathering in the south and eastern South Army from heading north here.

If the Southern Army controlled the town of Manassas, they could keep their capital, Richmond, away from the front line and burn the war to the north, preventing the southern territory from becoming a battlefield and being ravaged by the war.

The gradually sparse gunfire sounds in Manassas Town recently made the northern elites in Washington feel bad.

This is indeed the case. After a week of fierce battle, the Northern Army finally collapsed first.

The only good news is that although the Northern Army was defeated and lost the strategic location of Manassas Town, the Northern Army did not collapse thousands of miles away.

Brigadier General Natanil P. Sinclair, the chief military officer of the Shenandoah Legion, gathered the remaining troops in Fairfax town to curb the further retreat of the Northern Army.

Washington, the capital of the Northern Federation, has no open doors, and has completely opened its mind to the Confederate forces.

However, in this battle, the main force Shenandoah Legion, who participated in the Battle of Manassas, suffered heavy casualties, and it was a foregone conclusion that it would not be able to participate in high-intensity battles in the future.

In the battle of Manassas, the Northern Army paid the heavy price of 2,180 people killed, more than 3,200 injured, more than 1,200 disappeared, and more than 870 were captured. This is the biggest defeat that the Northern Army suffered in the Eastern Front since the outbreak of the Civil War.

Although the Southern Army cannot be said to be a tragic victory, the casualties have been paid. In this battle, more than 1,110 officers and soldiers were confirmed to be killed in the Southern Army, and another 46 Southern Army soldiers were missing.

Manassas, the water flow of the Niuben River is wrapped in blood-stained bandages, rolling pink whirlpools on the sandstone riverbed. In the peach tree garden on the north bank of the Niuben River, more than a dozen damaged cannons are like twisted steel thorns. The walnut stock of the Springfield rifle crackled among the embers, and the sweet smell of human flesh burned with gunpowder floated in the air.

The battlefield where the smoke had not yet dissipated was like a moldy corn cake, sprinkled with blue-gray human body residue.

Willis, a tall and thin man from the 5th South Carolina Regiment, was wearing pairs of cowhide boots that had just been taken off the body of a Northern Army lieutenant. Although the cowhide boots were not suitable, they were much more comfortable than the straw sandals he had worn before.

Putting on cow leather boots, Willis stuffed the copper buttons that had been pulled from the body of the Northern Army into the wide boots. Every step he took, the spoils engraved with the Federal Eagle Eagle emblem jingled, like a personal wind chime. .

The Southern Army engineers not far from Willis are changing the Northern Army tent poles into temporary stretchers to transport their wounded personnel to the temporary hospital in Thomasville Farm.

"Willis, look at what good baby I found!" Willis's fellow countryman and boss Lieutenant Bob raised a silver-plated officer's sword, and half of his ears were still stuck on the scabbard.

Behind Bob, more than a dozen Southern Army soldiers who were not even in uniform color and style were surrounding an overturned medical caravan, using bayonets to open a tin box filled with morphine, and the brass syringe was tempting in the sunset metallic luster.

The South was not very prepared for the war. Except for the barely enough guns, all other supplies were in short supply. The soldiers of the South Army basically wore whatever they had and used whatever they were.

This caravan of morphine and brass syringes are very valuable strategic materials for the Southern Army.

"Willis, you're here just in time. You and George and the others took this caravan to Thomasville Farm. A lot of us are still lying in the farm. Those injured guys need these medical supplies."

Bob put the baby he had just found into the scabbard and ordered Willis to take his companions to the field hospital in Thomasville Farm.

Willis's eyes lit up and he took on the task happily. He found a lame horse that could still move and pulled the caravan. After seeing Lieutenant Bob had gone elsewhere to clean the battlefield, Willis quietly pulled out a handful of morphine and brass syringe from the already pried open iron box.

On the way to Thomasville Farm, Willis runs into a team escorting the prisoners. This long line looks like a centipede dyed with blue ink.

The Major of the Northern Army, who was walking in front and tied his hands behind his back, suddenly staggered into the mud pit, and the gold-edged glasses were immediately covered with blood and horse manure.

The commander of the Southern Army, who was in charge of escorting, grinned and showed a black hole with his front teeth: "The young master in New York can't even walk on the road?"

As he said that, the sergeant commander of the Southern Army swung the captured Springfield rifle and picked up the other party's mud-stained silk bow tie as a battle flag.

In the captive team, a Pennsylvanian guy hummed "The Stars and Stripes" to express his dissatisfaction, and immediately his mouth was stuffed by Willis, who was passing by with sweat-soaked legs.

This funny scene caused the Nanjun who was escorting the prisoners to laugh out loud: "It's so smelly! It's so smelly! Willis, your smelly feet haven't been washed for many days?"

"My ears can't hear their desolate sounds from the north. Brothers, let these northern sissies listen to our southern celebratory music!" Willis hummed his southern celebratory music.

"The old thief Lincoln is lying in bed!

Lincoln's old thief fell seriously ill!

The old Lincoln thief is terminally ill! ”

Willis started, his companions quickly started to beat and hummed.

"Lincoln lying on the bed like a sick dog, a wailing sick dog. How I wish he would die now!"

The unbearable lyrics angered several bloody prisoners of the Northern Army. However, these prisoners of the Northern Army were about to protest, and they were taken from the stock of the Southern Army and became honest soon.

In the Southern Yale, expressing her feelings, Willis transported the seized caravan of medical supplies to Thomasville Farm. After completing the handover, Willis returned to the camp of the Sixth Regiment of South Carolina outside the farm.

The cook of the cooking squad was the black slave Old Sam brought by Lieutenant Bob. At this time, Old Sam had already set up a ten-iron pot by the stream, and the boiling soup was rolling with the canned beef in the Northern Army and the Thomasville Farm stolen. Corn, and pepper that I found from some body.

As for why Willis might be sure that the peppers were touched from the physical form, the answer is simple, because there is still undried blood on the pepper shaker.

After simply using a not-so-delicious dinner, Willis couldn't wait to find the peddler with his trophy.

Most of the vendors in the Southern Army were Irish, Jews, and Chinese who settled in the south.

No mistakes, one song, one post, one content, one reading!

Because Chinese vendors have wild ways and can get more gadgets, although the English language of southern Chinese and Irish and Jews are generally not very good, the soldiers of the Southern Army still prefer to find Chinese to trade with military vendors.

Many of these Chinese followers with military vendors, although they are doing their jobs with military vendors on the surface, they also work part-time as spies in the west behind their backs. However, the west and the south are not hostile, and the Southern Army also needs the services provided by these military vendors very much. The generals of the Southern Army turned a blind eye to this and issued special passes to these Chinese military vendors and allowed them to Be able to enter and exit the military camp freely.

The fundamental reason why the military hawkers can exist is that the army's own logistics system is not perfect, and the military hawkers need to supplement it, providing soldiers with food, daily necessities, luxury goods, haircuts, shaves and other services that the army cannot provide.

Not only are the Southern Army generally peddlers, but the Northern Army is the same.

During the Battle of Manassas, Willis's regiment even caught Jewish vendors who worked as postman for the Northern Army and conveyed military information.

"Sergeant Willis, what good things did you find today?" A Chinese vendor with a Guangdong accent came up and enthusiastically recruited Willis to sit at his stall, providing Willis with free services for him. A cup of steaming tea.

"Hong, you have a good memory. I've been to you here. You still remember my name." Willis didn't expect that this Chinese military vendor still remembers his name. After drinking tea, Willis Looking around, he asked in a low voice when he saw that there was no one around him.

"Do you dare to collect contraband?"

"That depends on what contraband is provided by each writer." Hong Delie smiled.

Willis mysteriously showed Hong Derek the morphine he came from the medical caravan.

Hong Delie pinched an ampoule and looked at it carefully. The ampoule is a hand-blown thin-walled glass tube with a standard length of about 3 inches (6cm) and a diameter of 5 inches (27cm) and contains 10 grains (about 10 grains) (about 3 inches (6cm)) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 3 cm) (about 65g) solution of morphine hydrochloride.

Since it is blown by hand, there is a significant difference in the size of the ampoule, and the morphine capacity inside also varies, usually less than the calibrated dose. The military also allows this error to exist.

As for how much less this is, it depends on how much the manufacturer has left, and whether the backend is hard or not.

The bottle mouth of this ampoule is sealed with cork and wax seal. It is the high-end morphine used by the Northern Army. The actual dose of each is not less than 9 grains, so it is undoubtedly hard currency.

"Good stuff! Good stuff!" Hong Derek exclaimed, "Willis, you've made a fortune!"

"You know the goods. There are stamp duty tickets from the Yankee Finance Department on the iron box of these morphines, which are genuine and regular and high-end goods!" Willis said proudly.

"Did you seize these good things from the Yankees on the North Shore?" Hong Derek began to draw Willis's words.

"Where are the Yankees on the north bank of the Niu Ben River? The Yankees were beaten up by us and they all ran back to Washington." Willis said impatiently.

"I understand, Sergeant Willis, I will collect as much as you have." Hong Delie said.

Willis took out all the morphine, brass syringe and the copper buckles in the boots. After counting, Hong Delie gave a quote: "8 morphine, $14. 4 meterless scales, simple bouncing yellow Copper syringe, $12, and other gadgets, I count you 70 cents, totaling $26 70 cents, Sergeant Willis is still satisfied with this price?”