評論
打印
The End of the Civil War
內戰的結束
Jay Winik
杰伊·溫尼克
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.
戰爭怎樣結束，與戰爭為何發生，或是如何進行，同等重要。換句話說，縱觀歷史，有太多內戰的結局極壞。想想北愛爾蘭，內戰已進行了200多年。想想黎巴嫩、盧旺達、柬埔寨。想想今天中東和巴爾干地區內戰的慘狀。我們的內戰本來也可能那樣極壞地結束，帶來同樣可怕而悲慘的后果，但結局并非如此，為什么呢？這是我曾想回答的問題，也是我在《1865年4月》一書中回答的問題。
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，因此我沒有以戰爭發生后136年或140年的認識平靜地看待這場內戰，而是以人們當時的眼光去看那些事件、那些決策、那些關鍵時刻，這樣你會發現那些事件很可能會有完全不同的結局。我極力想展現出這段歷史所蘊藏的豐富內涵。
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.
羅伯特·E.李，正如他的高級將領懷斯將軍曾對他說的那樣，是南方道德良知的象征。戰爭快結束時，他們兩人談論著局勢會怎樣發展。那天懷斯騎馬穿越前線，他在下馬時掉進了弗吉尼亞流沙，全身沾滿紅泥，這令他看上去十分滑稽。
