How Few Remain

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How Few Remain is a 1997 alternate history novel by Harry Turtledove.^[1] It is the first part of the Southern Victory saga, which depicts a world in which the Confederate States of America won the American Civil War. It is similar to his earlier novel The Guns of the South, but unlike the latter, it is a purely historical novel with no fantastical or science fiction elements. The book received the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 1997, and was also nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1998. It covers the Southern Victory Series period of history from 1862 and from 1881 to 1882.^[2][3][4]

Plot

The

In How Few Remain, the orders are instead recovered by a trailing C.S. soldier. McClellan is caught by surprise, and Lee thus leads 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 the United Kingdom and France, thus winning the war, which is known as the War of Secession in the alternate timeline, and achieving independence from the United States on November 4, 1862.

Abraham Lincoln ends up losing the 1864 presidential election to the Democratic candidate (whose identity is never mentioned in the series) in a landslide.

In the late 1860s,

The C.S. makes agreeable treaties with the

In 1881,

The U.S. attempt to invade Virginia is easily thrown back by General Stonewall Jackson as the Union struggles to find a general his equal. A key reason for the Confederate success in the war, in addition to fighting a defensive war, is that the Confederates are led by excellent generals like Jackson, but the U.S. military, despite possessing a massive advantage in numbers and resources, suffers from incompetent leadership. William Rosecrans, the commander of the entire U.S. army, casually reveals at one point that there is no overall strategy for winning the war "whatsoever." He envisions a vague idea of the opposing armies making counteroffensives back and forth against each other, which he feels the Union would assuredly win. That lack of planning leaves the German military observer, Alfred von Schlieffen, aghast.

The U.S. next attempts to launch a massive invasion of Louisville to knock the Confederates out of Kentucky, but that soon becomes a bloody stalemate. The decision of Stonewall Jackson to command the defense personally; the incompetence of U.S. commanders; and, most of all, the use of breech-loading artillery and repeating rifles make taking the city very difficult. The Confederate Army refrains from any major invasion of United States territory for two reasons: it does not have the resources to conquer the United States, and Confederate success hinges on the support of the United Kingdom and France, who feel that they are aiding a smaller nation wrongfully attacked by a larger one, and launching offensives into the United States would be seen as an act of aggression and might cost the Confederacy foreign support. Galled by orders to wage a purely defensive war, Jackson takes them to the extreme, pioneering tactics of urban warfare and full-scale trench warfare, which devastates Louisville (in scenes reminiscent of the real World War I). The Louisville campaign quickly bogs down for the United States and results in very heavy losses with little territory gained. The United Kingdom and France continue to blockade the United States; French forces from Mexico also shell Los Angeles, and the British bombard San Francisco and raid the Federal mint there.

The only major U.S. victory in the war occurs by a young volunteer cavalry colonel, Theodore Roosevelt, and George Armstrong Custer routing a British and Canadian division under Charles Gordon invading Montana from Canada. However, the British also invade northern Maine and annex it into the Canadian province of New Brunswick, which nullifies the Webster–Ashburton Treaty, which had solved the dispute.

Finally, facing defeat on almost all fronts, President Blaine is forced to capitulate on April 22, 1882. He declares that the anniversary of the defeat would be commemorated as Remembrance Day. A Republican is never again elected to the US presidency, with the party splitting into one faction led by Abraham Lincoln, which later becomes the Socialist Party, and another led by

Primary characters

The novel is narrated from the point of view of eight primary historical figures.

• Urban Warfare in the Battle of Louisville. Later he is approached by Wade Hampton III in a coup
  attempt but refuses.
• General
  J.E.B. Stuart defends the new C.S. territories of Sonora and Chihuahua from the Yankees in the New Mexico Territory, the Apaches under Geronimo being first his allies and then his foes. He dies in an Apache ambush
  near the end of the book.
• Colonel
  Chinese Gordon
  , before planning a run for president.
• Theodore Roosevelt is a wealthy, patriotic young Montana rancher who raises his own cavalry force, known as the "Unauthorized Regiment". He is largely responsible for Custer's victory in Montana.
• Frederick Douglass, a former slave and a fiery orator and journalist, observes the Union forces at war in Louisville and New York. He is briefly captured by the Confederates but is released by order of president Longstreet.
• Colonel Alfred von Schlieffen serves as the German military attaché to the U.S. He helps to plan the German-U.S. alliance.
• Samuel Clemens is a sharp-witted newspaper editor in San Francisco and a prominent opponent of the war.
• Former President Abraham Lincoln, influenced by the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, is an orator struggling to keep the Republican Party united in the cause of the working man, but eventually helps form a new party, the Socialists, which effectively replaces the Republican Party in the coming decades.

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 United States loses in a war against the United Kingdom, cedeing the northern part of Maine to the Canadian province of New Brunswick.

Following a series of speeches in Utah and

In effect, he concedes defeat in this war but sets the stage for the next one by instilling in U.S. citizens an ever-present desire for and expectation of revenge upon the Confederacy and the British Empire and embarking on an intensive program of systematic militarization on the German model, with the vision of making the United States a kind of second Prussia.

In this timeline's New York City, there is no

After losing two wars within twenty years, the U.S. begins an alliance with the strengthening German Empire (formed in 1871), and it eventually starts to reform itself along Prussian lines.

Reception

The book received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.^[4] SF Site's review stated, "Alternate history runs the risk of sliding into propaganda, suggesting that an outcome which could have happened is one which should have. This book has a whiff of that" but goes on to say, "Turtledove has researched the case thoroughly and argues it well."^[5]

Southern Victory Series continued

How Few Remain is followed in the

References

External links

• How Few Remain title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database