I was halfway through "
Gettysburg
," the first novel in this series by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen before I realized that I was reading an alternative history akin to "
Guns of the South
" than a historical novel in the mode of "
The Killer Angels
" (this is what happens when you make a point of ignoring reviews and discarding book jackets before reading books you really want to read). However, once I caught on to the game I was along for the ride, not only because I appreciate the idea of fighting new battles on different battlefield, but also because I correctly anticipated the end game that the authors were maneuvering towards in this engrossing trilogy.
The series is now up to August 22, 1863. The Army of Northern Virginia under the command of Robert E. Lee has virtually annihilated the Army of the Potomac through a series of battles at Gettysburg, Union Mills, and Gunpowder River. The Confederates unsuccessfully attacked Washington, D.C., but have succeeded in capturing Baltimore, Maryland. Ulysses S. Grant, placed in command of all Union forces by President Abraham Lincoln, is moving with the Army of the Susquehanna, comprised of corps of troops from the Western front that are used to winning against the Rebels, is moving for the final engagement with Lee on the banks of the Monocacy River.
I have a Civil War computer game where I could create battlefields and have played out engagements between the armies that met at Gettysburg on the geographies of Albuquerque, New Mexico and Duluth, Minnesota. So I can appreciate how Gingrich and Forstchen have traveled around Maryland and the surrounding environs to find their own new battlefields for these novels. The rough drawn maps included in the book are slightly problematic because if there is one thing we learned from studying the Battles of Gettysburg in any detail it is the importance of topography. Knowing the layout of the land at Antietam, Fredericksburg or any other battlefield of the Civil War is an important part of understanding how such battles were won or, more usually, lost.
The key factor to an alternative history such as this one remains have the characters ring true. Lee continues to take advantage of the tendencies of his opponents and Grant refuses to back off not matter what the body count. Dan Sickels is still an arrogant amateur and George Armstrong Custer is always looking for glory. George Pickett remains an example of style over substance, while Jeb Stuart proves you can have both. Pete Longstreet will always want to be safe rather than sorry and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain will always be concerned with personal honor. All of this is important to making such a story work. The locations change but the people remain true, which is ultimately why such stories work (or do not, although having Lincoln and/or Lee as characters is always going to be a plus in any fictional work).
Still, no matter how far off the beaten path an alternative history such as this series might go, there is still an impulse to take familiar moments from what really happened and work them into the ongoing narrative (e.g., what makes Grant's migraine go away). But there is a limited amount of this, most notably for the most causal student of American history in the book's final half-sentence, so that it does not become intrusive. I do have a personal complaint in that Gingrich and Forstchen followed history in killing off the one figure (I should say, military figure) I most would have liked to have seen survive this time around, even though I specifically begged them not to, but they do create an emotional resolution to this version that is rather compelling.
Those who dismiss this series as an attempt to rewrite history as a paean to the glorious cause for readers who are unrepentant and unReconstructed sons of the Confederacy have totally missed the point. The myth, articulated best by William Faulkner but extant long before his birth and potent to this day below the Mason-Dixon line, has been that if Pickett's Charge had succeeded or if by some other means Lee had won the Battle of Gettysburg he could have taken Washington, D.C. and ended the war with the Confederacy victorious. Although they found a plausible way for Lee to avoid defeat at Gettysburg, Gingrich and Forstchen proved that was not the case well before we got to this final book in the trilogy. The calculus of the Civil War, once articulated so succinctly by Rhett Butler, remains the same in these three books. Even so, there is an element of suspense here because we never really believe that the dice are loaded. After all, that is Robert E. Lee and the grim gray wolves of the Armies of Northern Virginia that Grant is facing.
The intent of this trilogy as clearly revealed by the final chapters of "Never Call Retreat" proves to be exactly what I anticipated it to be based on both my reading of the first two books and my own critique of the bloody mess that Reconstruction proved to be in the hands of the Radical Republicans following Lincoln's assassination. The fact that all three books take place in 1863 and that whatever the outcome the Civil War would be pushed forward a year-and-a-half is instructive as well with regards to what is really going on here. If anything, my only real disappointment with "Never Call Retreat" is that the alternative America is wants to create is really only sketched out at the end and I was expecting more than the idea that if going "B" instead of "A" avoids the problems of the hundred years following the Civil War. Then again, perhaps that is the ultimate irony here. Even in an alternative history winning the war proves to be far easier than winning the peace. The key thing to remember is that the latter war continues to this day.
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