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The End of the Civil War
内战的结束
Jay Winik
杰伊·温尼克
How wars end is every bit as important as why they start or how they're fought. Put differently, far too many civil wars throughout history end quite badly. Think of Northern Ireland. It's gone on for some 200 years. Think of Lebanon, Rwanda, Cambodia. Think of the horrors of the Middle East or the Balkans today. Our civil war could have ended as badly, with the same terrible, tragic consequences, but didn't. Why? That's a question I wanted to answer and which I do answer in my book, April 1865.
战争怎样结束，与战争为何发生，或是如何进行，同等重要。换句话说，纵观历史，有太多内战的结局极坏。想想北爱尔兰，内战已进行了200多年。想想黎巴嫩、卢旺达、柬埔寨。想想今天中东和巴尔干地区内战的惨状。我们的内战本来也可能那样极坏地结束，带来同样可怕而悲惨的后果，但结局并非如此，为什么呢？这是我曾想回答的问题，也是我在《1865年4月》一书中回答的问题。
In April 1865... I strip away the inevitability of events, so that rather than seeing the Civil War with the comfort of 136 years or 140 years of hindsight, you see the events as they take place; you see the decisions as they saw them; you see the turning points as they saw them; and you see how events could have just as easily gone one way or gone another way. It's that kind of richness of history that I wanted to bring alive.
在《1865年4月》中……我揭穿了一些事件的必然性，因此我没有以战争发生后136年或140年的认识平静地看待这场内战，而是以人们当时的眼光去看那些事件、那些决策、那些关键时刻，这样你会发现那些事件很可能会有完全不同的结局。我极力想展现出这段历史所蕴藏的丰富内涵。
Robert E. Lee was the moral conscience of the South, as General Wise, one of his top men, once said to him. Near the end of the war, they were talking about what would happen next. Wise had ridden through the lines. He dismounted his horse, and he had actually fallen in Virginia quicksand, and he was caked with red mud, and he looked ridiculous.
罗伯特·E.李，正如他的高级将领怀斯将军曾对他说的那样，是南方道德良知的象征。战争快结束时，他们两人谈论着局势会怎样发展。那天怀斯骑马穿越前线，他在下马时掉进了弗吉尼亚流沙，全身沾满红泥，这令他看上去十分滑稽。
