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VOA慢速英语2009年-THE MAKING OF A NATION - American History

时间:2009-11-07 05:47来源:互联网 提供网友:aa123   字体: [ ]
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Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English.

Two years of a bitter, bloody1 civil war started to show their effects on both the Confederate states of the South and the Union states of the North. Both sides began to feel the pressure of the costly2 struggle. The South, however, felt the pressure more severely3, because it was weaker in troop strength and industrial strength.

This week in our series, Maurice Joyce and Jack4 Moyles discuss the early summer of eighteen sixty-three in the American Civil War.

VOICE ONE:
 
General Robert E. Lee

In eighteen-sixty-three, the Confederate states were becoming short of supplies. Food and guns were difficult to find to keep the Confederate armies in the field.

Men were also needed. More and more men. There seemed to be no end to the demand for men to fill the places left empty by dead and wounded soldiers.

Many in the South were heavy of heart. And the hope among them slowly started to sink. The war was tiring. Its suffering was more than they could bear. And the situation in the West made matters worse.

Union Armies were on the move in the states of Mississippi and Tennessee. Their successes were becoming a serious threat. They might soon win control of the whole Mississippi river. This would split the states of the Confederacy and might end its very existence.

Something was needed to raise up the spirits of the South to break the pressure of Union armies.

VOICE TWO:

General Robert E. Lee believed he had the answer: an invasion of the north. This, he felt, would throw fear into the people of the north and weaken the Union war effort.

Lee had organized an army of seventy-five-thousand men at Fredericksburg, Virginia, halfway5 between Washington and Richmond.

Lee began moving his men June third. They marched northwest into the Shenandoah Valley. The valley led north to the Potomac River. Across the river was the narrow neck of western Maryland, then Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania was the target. Its rich farmland produced plenty of food -- enough to feed Lee's hungry army for the summer.

VOICE ONE:

Standing6 in the way of Lee's army was a small Union force at Winchester, in northern Virginia. There were only seven-thousand Union soldiers. And they had no idea that the Confederate army was nearby.

The Confederates easily defeated them. More than half of the Union troops were captured. The others fled.

Now there was nothing to stop Lee from marching into Pennsylvania.

The huge Army of the Potomac was behind him, near Washington. The Union commander, General Hooker, had to keep his army between Lee and Washington to prevent the Confederates from seizing the national capital.

VOICE TWO:
 
A painting of a Confederate attack near the town of Greencastle in the northern state of Pennsylvania

Lee's army crossed western Maryland and entered Pennsylvania. His soldiers found the Pennsylvania countryside very different from Virginia's. Virginia had been a battleground for two years, and the land showed it. Many of its farms had been destroyed. Its stores were empty.

Pennsylvania had not been touched by the war. Its big farms were rich. Its towns and villages were full of food and goods of all kinds.

The hungry, poorly-clothed soldiers could not believe their eyes. This was the land of the enemy, they cried, and they could take whatever they wished.

But General Lee said "No." He said supplies could be taken only by Confederate supply officers. And he said they must pay -- in Confederate money -- for everything they took.

VOICE ONE:

Lee did not want to anger these people in Pennsylvania. Many of them did not support the Union war effort. Some of the rich farmers said openly that they did not care who won the war. They said they only wanted to be left alone.

Lee was sure that many in the north felt the same way. There had been signs that people were growing tired of the war.

Coal miners in eastern Pennsylvania had shown their feelings toward the war a few months earlier.

They rose up against a new law drafting men into the Union army. The miners did not want to fight. They refused to join the army. They rioted and attacked officials who tried to take them. Soldiers were sent to the mining areas to put down the riots.

VOICE TWO:
 
A cartoon in the magazine Harper's Weekly showing anti-war Copperheads as snakes threatening the Union

Farmers in nearby Ohio also rebelled against the draft law. They refused to be drafted. Instead, they took guns and battled soldiers who came to arrest them.

Feelings against the war were growing stronger, not only in Pennsylvania and Ohio, but also in several other farm states of the north. These areas saw a growing support for a peace party -- a political party opposed to the war.

Leaders of this movement were Democrats8 called "Copperheads." They got this name because they wore on their coats a copper7 penny with the head of an Indian.

VOICE ONE:

The chief Copperhead was a former Ohio congressman9. His name was Clement10 Vallandigham.

As a member of Congress, Vallandigham criticized the war and the Republicans. He told them:

"The war for the Union is, in your hands, a most bloody and costly failure. War for the Union was abandoned. And war for the Negro was openly begun with stronger effort than before. With what success." Vallandigham asked. "Let the dead at Fredericksburg and Vicksburg answer."

Vallandigham said he wanted peace, and he wanted it immediately. He offered a simple program: stop the fighting. Make a ceasefire. And let some friendly foreign nation negotiate peace between North and South.

VOICE TWO:
 
Clement Vallandigham

After he lost his seat in Congress, Vallandigham opened a campaign to become governor of Ohio. He traveled all across the state speaking out against the war. He said Republicans did not want peace. He said they wanted to fight until every black man was free.

The Union military commander for Ohio was General Ambrose Burnside, a former commander of the Army of the Potomac. After losing the battle of Fredericksburg, Lincoln removed Burnside as army commander and sent him to Ohio.

Burnside was worried. Too many people in Ohio opposed the war. He believed that much of what was being said and done in Ohio was close to the crime of treason.

VOICE ONE:

Burnside announced several new measures to quiet the opponents of the war.

One of these orders limited the right of citizens to criticize government military policy. Another declared that statements of support for the enemy would be punished as treason.

Vallandigham refused to recognize Burnside's right to give such orders to civilians11. On May first, he made a campaign speech to a big crowd at Mount Vernon, Ohio. He denounced Burnside's orders and spoke12 of the President as "King Lincoln."

Vallandigham claimed that Lincoln was using the war to become a dictator. He said Lincoln did not want peace, that the president had rejected peace offers from the South. Once again, he said the war was not a struggle for the Union, but a fight to free the slaves of the south. And he said men of Ohio who let themselves be drafted into the Union army were no better than slaves themselves.

VOICE TWO:
 
General Ambrose Burnside

Burnside had sent several army officers to listen to the speech. When they reported what Vallandigham said, Burnside ordered his arrest. Without question, the man had violated the General's orders.

Late the next night, soldiers went to Vallandigham's home in Dayton. They knocked on the door and said they had come to arrest him.

Vallandigham called for help and refused to let the soldiers enter. They broke down the door, seized him and took him to a military prison in Cincinnati.

A few days later, Vallandigham went on trial before a military court in Cincinnati. That will be our story in the next program of THE MAKING OF A NATION.

(MUSIC)

ANNOUNCER:

Our program was written by Frank Beardsley. The narrators were Maurice Joyce and Jack Moyles. Transcripts13, MP3s and podcasts of our programs are online, along with historical images, at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.
___

This is program #107 of THE MAKING OF A NATION


点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 bloody kWHza     
adj.非常的的;流血的;残忍的;adv.很;vt.血染
参考例句:
  • He got a bloody nose in the fight.他在打斗中被打得鼻子流血。
  • He is a bloody fool.他是一个十足的笨蛋。
2 costly 7zXxh     
adj.昂贵的,价值高的,豪华的
参考例句:
  • It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
  • This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用,左不过贵了些。
3 severely SiCzmk     
adv.严格地;严厉地;非常恶劣地
参考例句:
  • He was severely criticized and removed from his post.他受到了严厉的批评并且被撤了职。
  • He is severely put down for his careless work.他因工作上的粗心大意而受到了严厉的批评。
4 jack 53Hxp     
n.插座,千斤顶,男人;v.抬起,提醒,扛举;n.(Jake)杰克
参考例句:
  • I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
  • He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。
5 halfway Xrvzdq     
adj.中途的,不彻底的,部分的;adv.半路地,在中途,在半途
参考例句:
  • We had got only halfway when it began to get dark.走到半路,天就黑了。
  • In study the worst danger is give up halfway.在学习上,最忌讳的是有始无终。
6 standing 2hCzgo     
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的
参考例句:
  • After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
  • They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。
7 copper HZXyU     
n.铜;铜币;铜器;adj.铜(制)的;(紫)铜色的
参考例句:
  • The students are asked to prove the purity of copper.要求学生们检验铜的纯度。
  • Copper is a good medium for the conduction of heat and electricity.铜是热和电的良导体。
8 democrats 655beefefdcaf76097d489a3ff245f76     
n.民主主义者,民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
  • The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》
9 Congressman TvMzt7     
n.(美)国会议员
参考例句:
  • He related several anecdotes about his first years as a congressman.他讲述自己初任议员那几年的几则轶事。
  • The congressman is meditating a reply to his critics.这位国会议员正在考虑给他的批评者一个答复。
10 clement AVhyV     
adj.仁慈的;温和的
参考例句:
  • A clement judge reduced his sentence.一位仁慈的法官为他减了刑。
  • The planet's history contains many less stable and clement eras than the holocene.地球的历史包含着许多不如全新世稳定与温和的地质时期。
11 civilians 2a8bdc87d05da507ff4534c9c974b785     
平民,百姓( civilian的名词复数 ); 老百姓
参考例句:
  • the bloody massacre of innocent civilians 对无辜平民的血腥屠杀
  • At least 300 civilians are unaccounted for after the bombing raids. 遭轰炸袭击之后,至少有300名平民下落不明。
12 spoke XryyC     
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说
参考例句:
  • They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
  • The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。
13 transcripts 525c0b10bb61e5ddfdd47d7faa92db26     
n.抄本( transcript的名词复数 );转写本;文字本;副本
参考例句:
  • Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样,都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
  • You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书,你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句
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