[ WP ] The United States loses the revolutionary war against Great Britain in a parallel timeline .

George Washington sits strapped rigid in his saddle. His injured leg trembles. The British surgeon did not remove the ball, just pressed an orange glowing brand to the wound and wrapped it tight with cheese cloth before replacing the general's torn uniform pants back n the abused flesh. Without the tightened straps he is certain he could not sit this horse even at its slow trot. 
 
 The pain is bad, but he tries to ignore it. 
 
 Worse is coming. 
 
 A slight breeze brings the odors of the dock to his nose. Smells he finds familiar and comfortable, like decaying fish, high tide, goods wrapped in waxed deerskin and men working shirtless in the summer sun. It's the other smells left over from yesterday's battle, the fear, gunpowder and men losing their lives that ruin the enchantment of the New York river countryside. 
 
 Even today, just twenty-four hours after the battle, there is the fresh bloom in the air of bloating bodies in need of disposal, of defeat, of bloodshed and shit filled britches, of men who thought they would live forever only to learn the painful kiss of a bayonet or led ball. 
 
 Fear squirms in the American leader ’ s belly, but he ignores it. All that matters now is showing stoicism, showing the world facing death did not faze him and history will describe him as a warrior who died fighting for what he believed. He might feel the rough clasp of the noose, but he will not give his killers the satisfaction of showing it. That his end is not the end of the movement. 
 
 Taking a deep breath he studies the death parade. At the head of the procession he watches a colonial drummer boy beating a gallows tattoo, ” dum dum da dum.'' he is dressed as he was for battle yesterday but his tricorne hat is gone, lost to the dust of battle. The mid morning sun casts an orange glow through the lads hair. 
 
 A cloud of dust stirred up by the large gathered crowd settles over the child's blue draped shoulders. He might as well be wearing white. His face is stained with blood and Washington wonders whose it might be, what carnage did this boy witness that may plague him every night for the rest of his life. 
 
 The blood might as well belong to the battle for freedom itself. The end of man versus the Gods, of ordained versus the ultimate struggle for personal betterment. This defeat might mean the death of man's upward mobility. 
 
 Unless this is not the end. 
 
 Congress still can fight and organize. 
 
 Washington furls his brow. He knows he was not the best military mind in the colonies, just the person willing to take the title and direct the efforts and wear the target. Others might step forward now that he is being martyred. Maybe many men would risk their lives for revenge and for claiming ownership of their own country. 
 
 Washington prays again that this not be the end. To allow his people a chance to get over his failure to them. He lost one battle, but they could all still win the war. 
 
 Not for his sake though, he has already come to accept his end is neigh, no, for the sake of what he fought and lost for. 
 
 He looks again to the drummer paying the barest attention to his task of beating the drum. His mind probably on the future. Washington hopes he still has a chance to live some of his life, have children, fight and actually win a battle or two. 
 
 Hopefully the kid would get to go home, one day, he still owed a debt for his treason to the crown, but hard indentured work never killed anyone and he could still be a father and grandfather. 
 
 For the lack of this one joy Washington was willing to give it all back. A Frenchman's musket ball took his testicles and his will to be selfish. 
 
 This boy like other men who survived would still have to wait to hear word of their fate. 
 
 All his officers would die today, that was certain. It ’ s the British way. Kill the leadership. Take the head of rebellion and take its soul. 
 
 Washington will dangle and his officers will be shot. 
 
 The procession of condemned follow him on the way to the hangman's tree selected for its age and size. The rest would be lined up along the wharf and forced to watch his hanging. When he stopped dancing they would be shot in turn, their bodies allowed to be fish food. 
 
 The grey pony was stopped in front an ancient white oak heavy with green leaves. Washington looks up and spies a large bottom branch swung out over the footpath. It was the perfect height for a man to be dehorsed. It was maybe a eighteen or so feet up and fifty feet from the water's edge. 
 
 From the branch swings a noose. 
 
 The rope brushes his left shoulder. It feels heavier than a rope should feel, like it was made of empty meaning and broken promises. 
 
 His officers are moved past him to the water's edge. 
 
 On the riverbank they will be lined up and in full view of their swinging commander shot dead. 
 
 The drummer boy is shoved in the back by the pointy end of a bayonet attached to a musket held by a lobsterback private. His steps stutter, but he catches himself before he falls, but follows the other soldiers. 
 
 Washington hopes if the boy dies today he is long gone so he can avoid seeing it. 
 
 He wants nothing more then not to have to live the rest of his moments with the memory of the boy dying. Even after so much death wrought by his orders he feels this last death might be too much to carry into the oblivion. 
 
 The colonial officers are lined up on the shores. 
 
 General Howe watches from just behind the firing line, one hundred red coats waiting for the order to fire. 
 
 Washington hopes the matter of dying will be handled quickly and that it was just the ceremony of the parade that was allowed to take its time. 
 
 There was no contingent of continental upstarts to interrupt the proceedings, judgement and punishment happened and as planned, immediately following the end of any combat rebuttals the executions would commence. 
 
 The colonials did not have any arguments to make when the rifles quieted and August 23rd 1776 would be the day known as the end of the colonial uprising. 
 
 In dusty forgotten about history books the whole ordeal might be looked at as a lark against the world ’ s greatest government. 
 
 Washington knows Howe is happy to kill as many as it would take to make peace, so is completely oblivious to the blood on his hands, as any good military commander would be. 
 
 When the day's total was finished being calculated there could be as many as seven thousand dead in the streets of Brooklyn Heights and that's not even attempting to count the bodies floating in the East River. 
 
 The royal navy picked them off or watched then struggle and drown. 
 
 Washington never planned for the Navy. 
 
 As an Army general he preferred dirt and mud to water and fish. 
 
 That was the plan. 
 
 Howe was supposed to think the colonials meant to defend the Jamaican pass. 
 
 If Washington had held the pass he would still be fighting. It would have been a long and costly battle. One he is certain the Americans would have eventually lost anyway. So instead his intention was to attack and run. The tactic would have worked, if they had escaped from Brooklyn. It would have worked if the British navy hadn ’ t gotten to the East River in time to block their egress. One day sooner, maybe a night and 9000 colonial troops would be safe on the island of Manhattan. 
 
 Washington had hoped Howe would see the glorious battle potential in the Jamaican Pass. It was a European generals dream. It made sense. It resembled Bunker Hill in every way, but instead of turning East he turned West. 
 
 Only history will know why Howe chose his tact. Maybe a spy. Maybe just a tickle. Which ever, it earned the pompous little man a brilliant victory. 
 
 The streets ran red with blood and British soldiers. 
 
 Few managed to make it to Manhattan. 
 
 The artilleryman Knox did though. If he did not slink off to the hinterlands of Pennsylvania he would make an able leader. 
 
 Young at 26, but experience can be earned in the heat of battle. 
 
 Congress could make him a hero and use him to recruit another Army. 
 
 Washington decides his death aids that end also. 
 
 Sitting his personally selected grey pony, his left boot overflowing with blood he is keenly aware of the road clogged with cheering spectators. Some wave the Union Jack and scream slurs at him and at anyone who dares wear blue or not look proud to be a British citizen. 
 
 Red is the color of the day. The color of the heroic British army. The color of the blood shed for victorious King George. 
 
 A cavalry officer rides up next to him and slips the noose over his head. The knot is tightened under the general ’ s left ear. 
 
 The crowd is wild, cheering for death. It ’ s as if the rebellion was merely an upstart bunch of tax evaders and the majority of people are happy for it to be done. Maybe they are just happy following what ever excitement is available. 
 
 The masses are fickle. 
 
 This makes the tall general sad. Granted he hated the tax code implemented in the colonies, but what he risked his life for was his brother and sister Americans, he did not do it to become their better, but to allow them all to become his equal. Now that it ’ s over the people seem happy to be loyal subjects of the crown again and pay what ever taxes the tyrant seemed fair. 
 
 He shakes his head in denial and prepares himself for the pain of dying. 
 
 It was none of his business anymore anyway, his task now is not to lead but to insight. 
 
 He watches his men being lined up to die along the water ’ s edge, but before he can be untied from his horse or asked if he had any last words, the father of his country instead shouts, “ death before tyrants! ” and kicks the mare with his right foot. 
 
 The beast shoots forward. 
 
 Her powerful legs work hard against gravity. 
 
 The tissue in Washington's neck provides little resistance but the rawhide straps hold. 
 
 With an audible snap his head is pulled from his shoulders ending the revolutionary war, but cementing him a legend in the American massacre of the British Empire.
