Introduction

Alternate history:

In July of 1863, as The Army of Northern Virginia reels away from the destruction of Gettysburg (1/3 of the total who came into Pennsylvania killed, wounded, or missing) and the Army of the Potomac limps after them (1/4 of the beginning total killed, wounded, or missing), the Union manages to catch them for a final battle before they escape back into Virginia – although Lee did manage to escape in our past. That changes history.

That results in the early capture of Richmond and the return of the Confederate capital to Montgomery.

The early fall of Richmond results in the early assassination of Lincoln, five years of President Hamlin instead of four years of President Andrew Johnson, and the election of a much more Radical congress in 1864 -- which produces a more thorough Reconstruction. Some great plantations found their way into federal hands. Families of freedmen were granted 40 acres (but no mule); veterans could get 80 acres. The grants would only be available in the states of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi; these states had held somewhat less than half the slaves at the beginning of the War, and there was a huge flow of freedmen into them under Reconstruction.

With the Confederate capital returned to Montgomery, the last decisive battles of the war mostly occur in Alabama, and they occur earlier than in our history. This brought most of the white characters of this story into a much-changed Alabama. How these changes occurred is covered in The General’s Store but this summary should be enough to orient you.

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