How Few Remain
From Turtledove
Contents |
[edit] Story
[edit] Prolouge
The point of divergence is September 10, 1862, during the American Civil War. In our timeline, a Confederate messenger lost General Robert E. Lee's Special Orders 191, which detailed Lee's plans for the Battle of Antietam. The orders were soon found by Union soldiers, and using them George McClellan was able to defeat the Army of Northern Virginia.
In How Few Remain, the orders are instead recovered by a trailing Confederate soldier. At the Battle of Antietam, McClellan is caught by surprise, enabling Lee to lead the Army of Northern Virginia to victory. Lee next forces McClellan into battle on the banks of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania and destroys the Army of the Potomac in the Battle of Camp Hill on October 1. Lee goes on to capture Philadelphia, earning the Confederate States of America diplomatic recognition from both Britain and France, thus winning the war (which is known as the War of Secession in the alternate timeline) and independence from the United States.
[edit] After the Civil war
Kentucky, having been conquered by Confederate forces shortly after the Battle of Camp Hill, joins the eleven original Confederate states after the war's conclusion, and the Confederacy is also given Indian territory (our timeline's state of Oklahoma, later the state of Sequoyah). The Spanish island of Cuba is purchased by the Confederate States in the 1870s, thus also becoming a Confederate territory.
In 1881, Republican James G. Blaine has ridden a hard-line platform of anti-Confederatism into the White House, having defeated Democratic incumbent Samuel J. Tilden in the 1880 presidential election. Both American nations have been sanctioning Indian raids into each other's territory. The international tension between the United States and the Confederate States peaks when Confederate President James Longstreet, desiring a Pacific coast, purchases the provinces of Sonora and Chihuahua from the financially-strapped Mexican Empire (which is ruled by Maximilian II, although this is not made clear until American Front) for CS $3,000,000. Blaine uses the "coerced" purchase as a casus belli, leading to the commencement of what will later become known as the Second Mexican War.
[edit] Aftermath of war
In April 1882, the Confederates once again defeat the United States with the help of Britain and France, which allows the purchase of Sonora and Chihuahua to stand. Along with losing the war, the U.S. loses, in fighting with Britain, the northern part of Maine to the Canadian province of New Brunswick.
Following a series of speeches in Utah, Montana, and Illinois, Abraham Lincoln leads a group of left-wing Republicans into the Socialist Party; this action leads to the sharp decline of the Republican Party, allowing the Socialists to eventually become the primary opposition to the Democrats.
After U.S. defeat in the Second Mexican War, President Blaine declared April 22 of every succeeding year to be Remembrance Day, to remember the humiliation of defeat, and vow revenge. The holiday parades will be somber, with the U.S. flag being flown upside down as a sign of distress, signifying the two losses to the Confederate States.
The United States moved its center of government from Washington, D.C. to Philadelphia, due to the District of Columbia bordering the Confederate state of Virginia (which is making governing increasingly difficult and impractical for the U.S.). The Powel House in Philadelphia became the home of future U.S. presidents.
In order to receive assistance from both Great Britain and France, Confederate President Longstreet is obliged to propose a constitutional amendment calling for the manumission of all the country's slaves; however, the free blacks will not have any of the same rights that whites have.
After losing two wars within twenty years, the United States has begun an alliance with the strengthening German Empire (formed 1871), and will eventually start to reform itself along Prussian lines.
[edit] Characters
The novel is narrated from the point of view of several historical figures.
- Thomas Jackson, old "Stonewall," General-in-Chief of the Confederate Army, is ready and eager to strike at the Yankees once more.
- General Jeb Stuart defends the new Confederate territories from the Yankees and the Apaches.
- Colonel George Custer, a frustrated Yankee cavalryman, serves on the Great Plains.
- Theodore Roosevelt is a wealthy, patriotic young Montana rancher.
- Frederick Douglass, a former slave and a fiery orator, observes the Union forces at war.
- Colonel Alfred von Schlieffen serves as the German military attaché to the U.S.
- Samuel Clemens is a sharp-witted newspaper editor in San Francisco.
- Former President Abraham Lincoln, influenced by the writings of Karl Marx, has become an orator struggling to keep the Republican Party united in the cause of the working man, against the Democratic Party and Big Business; if the Republicans are unable to meet his challenge, he'll find someone who can.
[edit] Southern Victory continued
How Few Remain is followed in the Southern Victory series by the Great War and American Empire trilogies, and the Settling Accounts tetralogy.
| The Southern Victory series | |||
| How Few Remain | Second Mexican War period | ||
| The Great War | American Front | Walk in Hell | Breakthroughs | Great War period | |
| American Empire | Blood and Iron | The Center Cannot Hold | The Victorious Opposition | Inter-War period | |
| Settling Accounts | Return Engagement | Drive to the East | The Grapple | In at the Death | Second Great War period | |
| Timeline-191 | |||
