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Right then. So, let me begin this damn project again shall I?

"And Bob Lee's Body Lies A-Moulderin' In the Ground"

Introduction


Wherein The Hero of Cerro Gordo’s Right Temple Momentarily Turns Into A Fountain of Blood.


It all begins with a chance firing of a rifle.

John Brown’s raid, by this point is an utter failure. The Marines have arrived on scene at Harper’s Ferry and relived the militia and mobs which had forced him and his band to hold up inside the fire house at the United States Arsenal he had wished to seize. Before he had hoped to march south by southwest, taking the mountains of Appalachia, and raising a general slave revolt in the lowlands, now he has no hope, the end is clearly at hand.

In command of the besieging force is the greatest star of the United States Army, Colonel Robert E. Lee. Hero of the Mexican War, former Commandant of West Point where as a cadet he was the only man to ever graduate without a single demerit, son of George Washington’s favorite cavalry commander, husband of Martha Washington’s Granddaughter, Executive Officer of the most elite force in the US Army, the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, presently on leave to reorganize his plantation of Arlington which overlooked the nations capitol.

Lee now crouches behind an upturned cart, part of the barricade which seals off Brown. Next to him are two younger men, the first who is now serving as his aide-de-camp on this expedition, another well bred Virginian of an old family is Lieutenant James Stuart, United States Army known by all as Jeb. The other, a Virginian by marriage is Lieutenant Israel Greene, United States Marine Corps, whose detachment from Washington D.C. makes up the core of Lee’s small army. Lee has formulated a plan of attack, to seize Brown’s improvised blockhouse and end this rebellion as quickly as possible.

In explaining his plan he for a moment, oblivious to the cracks of varied potshots, lifts his head above the barricade to gesture where he wants the assault to come. And as he does, by random chance, and his own misfortune a round strikes. The bullet is of large calibre and like all of its era is moving slowly. The right side of Lee’s skull for practical purposes shatters and the force of the round causes the Colonel to fall back as the bullet continues to move though his brain matter. By the time he hits the ground, Lee is dead.

His commander’s blood on his face, it now falls to Greene to act. He and Stuart organize the marines and follow the plan the now departed Lee has laid out for them, less than an hour later. The troops are rushed up and the door is knocked down. The first force of marines takes just a moment to determine who’s bound on the floor and who is lying there wounded. And of course, who is standing with guns in their hands. With precision that more than half a century of service tradition dictates, they take aim and almost at once fire, before they charge forward with bayonets. And with that, all of the raiders are dead with the exception of those half dozen who had fled before. One of the hostages, Louis Washington, great-grandnephew of Lee’s grandfather-in-law, upon being released was able to identify one of the corpses as that of John Brown, thus marking an end to the insurrection, which had been secured with the deaths of one Marine and one Army Colonel. And of course, marking the lighting of powder-keg of another insurrection.


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Short yes but there's more coming. Also God I hate that title but I hate it a bit less then all those [My Timeline] V. 14.0 ones so, there it is.
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