Dixie Betrayed
Chapter One
Prologue
It was a typical Virginia spring morning, with a slight breeze
cascading and the sweet smell of honeysuckle permeating the humid
air. Shafts of bright sunlight shot down through the canopy of
forest and illuminated patches of dusty ground. Dense thickets of
brush intermingled with the scratchy sounds of life among it;
squirrels darted through last fall's leaves; rabbits and raccoons
made peace with the forest floor and stayed put, holed up against
the commotion of the outdoors. In the distance could be heard faint,
shrill tones of music together with the crackle and boom of drums as
well as the snapping branches and shuffling leaves as men marched in
loose form.
The peace and beauty of the Wilderness, a forested area in Virginia
west of Fredericksburg, masked a deepening Southern desperation.
Ulysses Grant and George Meade were bearing down on Richmond, which
had narrowly avoided capture two years earlier. Vicksburg had fallen
the previous summer, as Robert E. Lee's raid into Pennsylvania
failed. Now a Yankee drive deep into Georgia was coming. ... read full excerpt from: Dixie Betrayed: How the South Really Lost the Civil War ebook
