How Few Remain
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How Few Remain is a 1997 alternate history novel by Harry Turtledove. It is the first part of the timeline-191 saga. The book received the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 1997. Image:How Few Remain Front Cover.jpg
Contents |
Story
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 Order 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. McClellan is caught by surprise, enabling Lee to lead the Army of Northern Virginia towards Philadelphia. Lee 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 Great 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.
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 Timeline-191 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 still ruled by Maximillian) 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.
Characters
The novel is narrated from the point of view of several historical figures.
- Thomas J. Jackson, old "Stonewall," General-in-Chief of the Confederate Army, is ready and eager to strike at the Yankees once more.
- General J.E.B. Stuart defends the new Confederate territories from the Yankees and the Apaches.
- Colonel George A. 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.
Aftermath of war
In April 1882, the Confederates once again defeat the United States, which allows the purchase of Sonora and Chihuahua to stand. Along with losing the war, the U.S. loses, in fighting with Great 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 declares 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.
In effect, while conceding defeat in this war, Blaine was setting the stage for the next one, instilling in US citizens an ever-present desire and expectation of revenge upon the Confederacy (and upon Canada) while embarking on an intensive program of systematic militarization on the German model, with the vision of making the US a kind of second Prussia. Turtledove's model in our history was evidently the French desire for revenge on Germany following their defeat in the 1871 Franco-Prussian War and the loss of Alsace and Lorraine.
Meanwhile, The United States will move centers of administration from Washington, DC, 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 Powell House will become a secondary White House whenever tensions between the CSA and USA are high.
In order to continue to receive assistance from both Great Britain and France, Confederate President Longstreet had 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 begins an alliance with the strengthening German Empire (formed in 1871), and will eventually start to reform itself along Prussian lines.
Timeline-191 continued
How Few Remain is followed in the Southern Victory series by the Great War and American Empire trilogies, and the Settling Accounts tetralogy.