Quite real
The very DNA of the Deep State.
Also realpolitik, writ large. And, in historical terms, comparatively merciful; some nations would simply have hung every rebel in a similar situation.
He was just a plain old evil man.
His ‘mercy’ was such that he knew he could never get away with a wholesale slaughter of Americans, and not have it fly in his face, with the consequences eventually leading to his own neck swinging from the gallows.
America was a firm Christian nation back then. Not even the Yankee vets would have gone along with that 100%. His restraint from doing that is evidence of that culture.
Well now, you see that word "Rebel" is actually misused in a discussion about this war.
The Declaration of Independence asserted that any body of people had a right given by "nature and nature's God" to become independent of another people with whom they needed to "dissolve the political bonds."
This idea was the foundation of our nation. That being the case, how can it be "Rebellion" to exercise this right?
Sure, it was rebellion against the Monarchy, but the Monarchy was not founded on a right to independence. We were.
To my thinking, denying people their right to independence is actual rebellion against our founding principles. Fighting to keep them in a condition of oppression against their will seems to be a rebellion against the idea upon which the nation was founded.
So as I said, the "Rebels" ought to be regarded as the people in Washington DC that launched an invasion to stop people from getting the independence to which they had a right as spelled out in our own foundation document, the Declaration of Independence.