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Mercy at Appomattox
阿波马托克斯的宽恕
William Zinsser
威廉·津泽
I'm not a Civil War buff. I've never heard the old battlefields like Gettysburg and Chickamauga calling to me to walk over them and re-enact what happened there. The story is just too sad.
我不是内战迷，也从未听到过葛底斯堡和奇克莫加那些老战场的召唤而去那里走一走，重温一下在那儿发生的一切。那个战事的确是太令人伤心了。
But one Civil War site did keep beckoning to me—not one where the armies fought but the one where they stopped fighting: Appomattox.
但是有一处内战的遗址一直吸引着我——它不是军队作战的地方，而是他们停火的地方——阿波马托克斯。
To see it I flew to Richmond and drove west across southern Virginia, choosing a route that would take me over terrain that Gen. Robert E. Lee covered with his Confederate army in its last week.
为了参观阿波马托克斯，我乘飞机到了里士满，然后驱车西行穿过南弗吉尼亚，选择的这条路线能使我经过当年罗伯特·E.李将军和他的南方盟军在最后一周走过的地带。
For nine months Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had been dug in near Petersburg, south of Richmond. On April 2, his railroad lifeline cut by the North, Lee retreated. But Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was in close pursuit, and by April 6 it was all over. Union troops routed almost a fifth of Lee's army at Sayler's Creek and took some 7000 prisoners. Hearing the news, Lee said, "My God! Has the army been dissolved?" It largely had. Hungry and exhausted, huge numbers of soldiers had dropped out, and the army was down to 30,000 men when Lee, hurrying west, received a note from Grant calling on him to surrender.
九个月来，李的北弗吉尼亚大军一直驻扎在里士满南部的彼得斯堡附近。4月2日，他的铁路生命线被北方军切断，李撤退了。但尤利塞斯·S.格兰特将军紧追不舍，到了4月6日，一切都结束了。在塞勒湾，北方联军使李损失了将近五分之一的军队，并捕获其7，000名战俘。听到这个噩耗，李说上帝啊！我的军队就这样垮了吗？”在很大程度上的确如此。里于饥饿、疲劳，许多战士做了逃兵，军队人数锐减至3万，就在此时，匆忙西行的李收到了来自格兰特的劝降信。
Outnumbered and almost encircled, Lee considered his dwindling options. One officer suggested that the troops could disperse and carry on as guerrillas.
敌众我寡，又几近被包围，李考虑到他的选择范围正在缩小。一个军官建议他分散兵力以游击的形式继续作战。
