Lincoln put all his troops into Fort Bradens, which was on the front line, and there was no way to put an empty plan in Washington City.

After all, no matter how hard he tries and how confident he is, the total number of Washington's troops is certain, and the quality of his soldiers is also certain, even if the morale can be a little higher, the increase in combat strength will not be too obvious.

Since there are few soldiers, it is natural to find some geographical advantages, but when Washington first built it, it was not built according to the fortress, it was just a special administrative area, and the original scale was a small town of several thousand people, which was easy to attack and difficult to defend.

If it weren't for the fact that Washington was in no danger, during the Second Revolutionary War, then-President James Murphy would have been in danger of defending Washington. Madison, faced with a British invasion, would not have fled Washington in a hurry and ran to Virginia.

By the way, in the original Battle of Washington, the American army did not resist in Washington, D.C., and also fought a decisive battle with the British army in Bradensburg, but lost the first battle, opening the last door to Washington.

After that battle, although Washington still had some troops, it no longer had the courage to resist, and it immediately turned into a rout, resulting in the bloodless occupation of Washington by the British army, and the burning of the White House, Congress and other public buildings.

In short, because the troops were too small, or rather, Lincoln was really deceived by Jackson's bluff, and really thought that the other side wanted 300,000 troops to press in, but Lincoln didn't want to retreat, so he could only concentrate his forces and concentrate on defense at Brydensburg.

In any case, Brydensburg is on a higher terrain, and in the past it has built a relatively strong defensive position, slightly reinforced, hoarded some food and munitions, and then invested enough troops, so even if it is faced with 300,000 people, as long as everyone is united. It should be okay to keep it for a year and a half.

In other words, compared to Washington, which was not in danger to defend, Brydensburg was the northern gate of the city, and it was also a strong fortress, which was originally intended to serve the war, so there was nothing wrong with Lincoln's approach itself.

Of course, normally speaking, if you want to attack Washington, you must first take out the gateway to Brydensburg, if you don't care about Brydensburg. Forcibly bypassing this place and attacking Washington in a roundabout way, that would be to leave the road, which is tantamount to leaving one's back road to the defenders of Bradensburg, is a rather dangerous approach, and no normal person would do it.

The reason why Stuart thought about using cavalry to bypass Bradensburg and flank Washington was just to harass him and see if he could take advantage of it. This is the same way he used to think.

Because in the course of past operations, Stuart rarely led troops to attack frontally, preferring to attack the enemy from the flank, and more than commanding infantry. He preferred to command the cavalry.

Another point is that Stuart's ideas are always wild and his style of play is not very serious, so he thought about leaving part of his troops to contain the defenders in front of him. Behind the bypass to harass Washington.

It is conceivable that once he has enough cavalry in his hands, it will not be much. With only 5,000 men, he would probably carry out his plan.

At that time, he will find that Washington has long become an undefended city, and when the time comes, he only needs to work harder, and Washington may fall completely, then he can rely on his own strength to defeat Washington, and complete the encirclement and containment of Lincoln's department, completely change the course of the war, and maybe the northern government will be destroyed by the war.

But it's a pity that his ideas were annihilated by reality, because he didn't have enough qualified cavalry!

In any case, after settling down, Stuart's adventurous idea was extinguished because of this, and he obediently reported the situation here to the rear, and General Jackson, who was behind, also made a wrong judgment after receiving the report from the front.

His judgment was that Washington should still have enough defensive strength, and Lincoln did not flee in a hurry, but chose to resist stubbornly, so that his attempt to take Washington by relying on a quick attack may not be realized.

The reason is very simple, siege warfare is different from others, 30,000 people can't do it, 300,000 people go up, at most speed up, but it is impossible to do it quickly overnight.

Bradensburg, Jackson is still relatively clear, after all, he has been there in the past, knows how easy and difficult to defend and difficult to attack that place, once there are enough troops, and then make enough preparations, even if 300,000 people pass, without paying the price of blood, it will not be able to take it.

In other words, according to Jackson's estimates, if Brydensburg really had 50,000 men to defend, then it would take at least a month or two for him to take down those 300,000.

But the problem is that for such a long time, there are too many variables, and it is difficult to guarantee that the Philadelphia army will not go south.

Once he led his troops to fight Washington in front, but the Philadelphia army behind went south to attack Baltimore, one was not good, Baltimore was taken, and he would face a situation of being caught between the front and back, and then these 300,000 people would really die without a place to bury.

Moreover, although Washington is said to be understaffed according to intelligence, who knows if this information is true or false? After all, his intelligence was also drawn from the mouths of the defenders of Baltimore, and the accuracy is quite difficult to say.

Even if Washington really doesn't have enough troops, there is an expanded Potomac regiment further south!

As an old opponent who has been fighting with the Potomac Legion for a long time, Jackson is still very clear about the strength of this force, knowing that this Potomac Legion is nominally a legion, but in fact it has long become a war zone.

Because the Potomac Legion now has 500,000 men, all of whom are veterans with rich combat experience, it can be said that it is the true essence of the Federal Army.

In addition, Fredericksburg, where the Potomac Corps was entrenched, had been built into a large-scale defensive position, and in terms of scale, it was even more than the Robert Line built by General Robert, which was really easy to defend and difficult to attack.

Suffice it to say, if he really wanted to break Fredericksburg, which was defended by the Potomac Legion, Jackson had expected that he would have to take out more than two million troops and launch a continuous and decisive assault on the front, and be prepared to lose half a million men, but this was something that the Confederates could not do anyway.

It was precisely because Fredericksburg's defense was so strong that it was impossible to break this position with normal offense. Li and the others did not think about attacking from the front from the beginning, but thought about bypassing that defensive position early and using roundabout tactics to win.

In the current situation, to complete the roundabout tactic. The most reliable way is to make a detour from the sea to the east, and it is simply unrealistic to make a detour from the west, which is why they colluded with the Anglo-French forces early, hoping to get the support of the Anglo-French forces, especially their fleets.

Because it was impossible to project a large number of troops from the sea at once by relying solely on the naval forces of the Union itself, only the fleets of the British and French.

At this moment, the British navy is still known as the first in the world. The French navy considers itself to be the second in the world, so with the help of the world's first and second navies, there is still no big problem for the coalition forces to make a detour at sea and make a beach landing.

At first, Robert and others wanted to find an inconspicuous small place to land on the beach, but later after the Baltimoreans came to contact him, Robert . Lee found a better option and landed directly in Baltimore.

Baltimore is easy to defend and difficult to attack. But the port is very large, and once the place can be taken quickly, then the naval forces can use the port there to project troops more quickly. It's much better than landing in a small place where you don't get around.

You must know that if there is no suitable port, large ships cannot dock directly, and can only use small boats to transport people back and forth. This will take a lot of time and energy, but if you can directly enter a large port, then large ships can directly dock at the port. Personnel, materials and equipment can be directly disembarked from the big ship, and the speed is incomparable.

Of course, even if the port of Baltimore can't be taken, it doesn't matter, it can make the Northern Army nervous, maybe they can attract their troops to Baltimore, and then, with the combined fleet of the Union Army and Army, they can go to the small place chosen by Robert to land again, and lead the troops directly into Washington!

Yes, according to Robert's plan, it is best to take Baltimore immediately, if you can't take it, find another place to land, and then the army will land and go straight to Washington, and wait for Washington, which is not in danger to defend, and then march to Baltimore.

That is, it is true that Washington is an important target, but in the case of Robert . In Lee's eyes, the importance of that city is actually not as important as Baltimore, because once it controls Baltimore, it is equivalent to controlling the entire Maryland, cutting the Northern Army into small pieces that do not rely on the north and the south, but attacking Washington, in addition to boosting their own morale, in terms of strategic position, there is no benefit.

As a matter of fact, Washington is only a political center, with neither a decent economy, nor a decent industry, nor a well-connected transportation hub, so it is not very strategically important.

In contrast, several big cities such as Philadelphia are the real hub cities of the United States, but those places are not easy for them to take.

However, Baltimore was taken smoothly, so according to Robert's original plan, it was to stick to Baltimore, eat the meat in his mouth first, and then talk about the rest.

Once Baltimore fell into the hands of the Confederate forces, it was equivalent to an additional offensive base, so that the defensive positions of Fredericksburg would not make much sense.

Because the Confederates and the Anglo-French forces occupied the coastline, it was entirely possible to send a force to contain the federal forces in Fredericksburg while transporting the follow-up troops to Baltimore by sea.

When the number of Confederate troops in Baltimore reached a certain number, they could fight wherever they wanted, occupying the absolute initiative, but the Union Army was the first to take care of each other and fell into complete passivity.

In this way, the entire initiative and the rhythm of the war will be completely controlled by the Union Army, and it will not be long before the Union Army will be broken by itself, and if the situation is good, it may not take a year to completely defeat the Lincoln government to which the Union Army belongs, and reunify the North and South.

It can be said that Baltimore is a top priority and must not be lost. Lee's appeal is not great.

On this point, Jackson's view is similar, that is, Baltimore comes first, and Washington can let it go, but if possible, it is certainly better to try to take Washington, and the war can be ended more quickly.

It was because of this idea that after Jackson occupied Baltimore, he played a deceptive tactic and put on a posture of pressing the whole army against Washington.

There are two benefits to this:

First, it is to scare the Lincoln government, and it is best for the other party to run away obediently. In that way, they can take Washington without bloodshed, break the morale of the northern government, and reduce their resistance.

Second, it is to attract the attack of the defenders of Philadelphia, and want them to take the initiative to come, and he will wait for work, using the strong fortifications of Baltimore, to give the troops in the direction of Philadelphia a ruthless, and it is best to completely annihilate this force, even if it is not possible. It can also be hit hard, and it can reduce the difficulty of attacking Philadelphia in the future.

Now it seems that Washington's defenders did not seem to be intimidated and chose to put up stubborn resistance, and in this way, Washington's value was greatly reduced, at least in Jackson's opinion, and the opportunity to continue the offensive had been lost.

You know, Washington is a small city now. As the capital, however, the railroad lines are quite good, not only to Baltimore, but also to Fredericksburg in the south.

So. Once Washington's defenders can hold on for a moment, it will take less than two days to bring in at least 100,000 troops from Fredericksburg!

Once Washington has 100,000 troops, it would be wishful thinking to take Washington quickly. As for the Fredericksburg direction, the Potomac Legion as the defender has 500,000 men, even if 100,000 are gone. Even 300,000 people, leaving only 200,000 troops to defend, will not have much impact on their defense.

After all, Fredericksburg's defense was too perverted, and the Northern Virginia Legion in front of it, in order to support Jackson and complete the tactics of roundabout operations, its own strength was also greatly reduced, and the real number was only 200,000, which belonged to the situation where the defense was acceptable and the offense was insufficient.

This is actually not difficult to understand, after all, the strength of the Union Army is there, whether it is the number of people or the number of troops, it cannot be compared with the Union Army, especially when Lincoln is crazy about what compulsory military service system, the strength of the Union Army and the Union Army is actually larger.

After all, it is impossible for the Confederate States to play dictatorship like Lincoln, even if Davis wants to, the people below will not, and Davis's power is not as strong as Lincoln, he actually does not really control the entire Union army, but is just a nominal commander-in-chief.

In other words, although the Union Army is also a whole, it is more accurate to say that this is a force raised by the big farmers in the South, and the nature of the militia private army is stronger, but because these private troops are more fully prepared before the war, and the training and weapons are relatively good, so it seems that they can fight better than the regular army in the north.

Therefore, Davis's control is far from being comparable to Lincoln, so Lincoln can play dictatorship, Davis can't play anyway, if he dares to follow Lincoln's example, the farmers below him will kill him in minutes and change to a new agent.

In this way, the mobilization ability and efficiency of the coalition army are far inferior to that of the northern army, if it were not for the fact that the Chinese were too capable of fighting, and successively ate several elite regiments of the northern army, resulting in the entire western battlefield being completely eroded, then the northern army relies on absolute strength, I am afraid that the southern army has long been bitter, has no time at all, and has no ability to play the so-called roundabout attack.

But having said that, the fact that the Northern Army was able to pull out more troops than the Southern Alliance Army to stabilize the eastern battlefield when the western battlefield was completely eroded and lost 700,000 main forces one after another, and even withstood the invasion of the British and French forces in the northern battlefield at the same time, which in itself shows that the Northern Army is strong and is a typical example of high blood and thick blood.

To deal with such a behemoth, it is unrealistic to expect to win by a quick attack, and we can only always grasp the initiative on the battlefield and rely on successive bloodletting to make the northern army lose the confidence to continue fighting, so that we can end this war more quickly.

After thinking about this, Stonewall Jackson immediately decided to give a new order to Stuart, who was advancing into Washington, D.C., asking him to leave the battlefield as soon as possible and withdraw to Baltimore before the other side could react.

"Listen, soldier." Jackson looked at the herald and said with a serious expression, "You have to go back quickly, tell your general, and ask him not to fall in love with war, let alone be blinded by Washington, and it is wise to withdraw quickly!" Here, we have more battles to fight, and he has the opportunity to make a difference.

On the contrary, if he is attached to Washington, in case he delays the fighter plane, or inflicts unnecessary losses on the troops, then his military career is over, and I will personally send him to court-martial, I promise! (To be continued......)