How Few Remain

1998

1862:

General Robert E Lee is about to split the Army of Northern Virginia into several divisions to strike behind McClellan's slothful forces. Special Order 191 gives the details to his commanders. Sent out by messengers, it would have been so easy for a copy to go missing and, but for the quick sightedness of a couple of soldiers in grey, this might have come to pass threatening the victory of the Southern forces.

But all the ANV commanders are informed of the plans and they are carried out with ruthless efficiency leaving McClellan to play a fateful game of catch up-and-be-destroyed on Lee's terms. With the Northern Army of the Potomac in tatters, the way to Washington is open.

Now, with Washington under their guns the soldiers of the Confederate States of America were able to force the Union to a cease-fire and gain international recognition from the Great European Powers.

1881:

The USA and CSA have shared an uneasy international border for almost 20 years now and things are getting less easy by the day.

The CSA has arranged to buy the two northern most states of a cash starved Mexico but a newly aggressive USA says that they would consider this an act of war. The CSA. knowing their enemy don't see this as anything to do with the US and say so in no uncertain terms.

The purchase goes ahead.

The main section of the books then deals with the ensuing conflict from a variety of points of view.

A disgraced Abe Lincoln pounds the streets aiming to produce a fairer society for both black and whites whilst enduring the taunts of those who see him as the author of their miseries.

An impecunious newspaper editor by the name of Sam Clemens faces down charges of being a Southern agent before being faced by a truly terrifying sight; the dentistry of a Royal Marine from the wrong side of the Marine's rifle as the Royal Navy is tasked with seizing the San Francisco Mint.

Up in the frozen wastes of the Montana Territory, a young landowner by the name of Theodore Roosevelt raises his own regiment to attack the British soldiers invading from the Canadian provinces. That brings him into conflict with a General Custer who is tasked with the official defence of the Territory.

At the river city of Louisville on the Ohio, the Union army has vowed to force a crossing against the massed guns of the Confederate defenders but against modern artillery outmoded infantry assaults are a waste of lives. The German military attaché with the Union forces, a Colonel Schlieffen, is there to see these failures and the rescue of the noted abolitionist Fred Douglas from the dinner table of Stonewall Jackson himself.

On almost all fronts demoralised Union forces are destroyed by their enemies; even France bombards Los Angeles harbour as the Royal Navy makes free with the coastal areas of the US with little hinderence from the US navy.

The one bright spot would appear to be on the plains of Montana where that British expeditionary force has struck south against the Gatling guns of General Custer and the determined riders of Colonel Roosevelt's Unauthorised Regiment. The British seem to to be being chewed to pieces!

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