How Few Remain

It was okay

This book is an example of alternative history at its best. To me, there are two elements to great alternative history. The first and most obvious is that the writer gets the history "right" - not accurate, of course, but believable. "Pure" alternative history is about what might have been; as such it should be reasonably plausible, with people and developments that must ring true to their times. Here Turtledove excels, demonstrating both imagination and a familiarity with the period. His sequence of events in developing a "second War Between the States" is logical, and he captures famous personalities - such as Abraham Lincoln, "Stonewall" Jackson, and Samuel Clemens - with considerable accuracy, portraying figures that are recognizably the same people that we know from our past. Yet the people he depicts are more than just caricatures of historical reputations. This gets to the other component of first-rate works from the genre - strong character development. Within the context of a second conflict between the two halves of the former United States (over the acquisition of Mexican territory by the Confederacy), the reader sees them as they react to the circumstances of the war and how the war, in turn changes them. It is this aspect which makes the book riveting from beginning to end and essential reading for anyone interested in exploring how things might have turned out differently.

How Few Remain (1997) is a science fiction novel about a timeline where the South won the Civil War. A courier lost a copy of General Robert E. Lee's Special Order 191, showing the entire disposition of his forces, in the Confederate camp in Frederick, Maryland, but a Rebel infantryman noticed his dropped message and returned it to him. The Southern forces went on to win the battle at Hagerstown and the war. In this novel, two decades later, Colonel George Armstrong Custer is chasing Kiowas to the south of Fort Dodge, Kansas. The indians are making for the Indian Territory border, where they will be off limits to the Union forces. However, Custer decides that they are not going to stop this time, but continue to pursue the savages across the border, but encounters a Confederate cavalry squadron at the border. Custer exchanges several pleasantries with the Confederate Captain, including a few "You started it" remarks from each side, and returns to Fort Dodge. Elsewhere, Abraham Lincoln is presenting a speech in Denver with a Marxist theme. Samuel Langhorne Clemens is writing editorials about Maximillian selling the provinces of Chihuahua and Sonora to the Confederacy for three million dollars. Theodore Roosevelt is running a ranch in Montana Territory. The conflicts between the USA and the CSA haven't disappeared, but have only been allowed to stew awhile. Mounting frustration in the North has brought a Black Republican back into office, the first since Lincoln, and he is talking tough. War seems inevitable. The novel hinges on a historical event that allowed McClellan to defeat Lee at Antietam. Without prior knowledge of Lee's dispositions, however, McClellan probably would not have maneuvered the Confederate forces into the pocket between Antietam creek and the Potomac. Lee had planned on passing through Hagerstown into Pennsylvania and then hitting the railroad bridge across the Susquehanna, as he actually did a year later. With the disposition of McClellan's troops at that time, and with Jeb Stuart at hand, Lee may well have defeated McClellan as he had so many times before. This time, however, the loss could have been a disaster for the North, for Lee was poised to cut off the Union troops in the field and threaten Washington, thereby forcing the Union into a cease fire and, if nothing else, a defacto truce. This story sets the stage for the author's subsequent novels in this timeline: the Great War series and the American Empire series. While none can really determine the exact path that a timeline will follow at a divergence point, the author has used existing political trends and personalities to shape a new and different future. Such alternate histories provide a new look at the way history actually happened, separating the ephemeral trends from the fundamental movements in social affairs. This author is one of the very best at such works. Recommended for Turtledove fans and anyone else who enjoys playing "what if

Harry Turtledove's first Civil War alternate history, GUNS OF THE SOUTH, was more fantasy than true AH. Its premise was a time machine that only allowed one to go back in history exactly 150 years. A group of disgruntled Afrikaners went back in time to equip Robert E. Lee's troops with AK-47s. Yeah, right. In contrast, HOW FEW REMAIN is true AH-blessed with a far more plausible premise. The prologue is set in 1862, setting out the back-story: Lee's plans for the 1862 invasion of Pennsylvania do not fall into Union hands. As such, Lee is able to fight a campaign of maneuver that culminates in a major victory at New Cumberland, Pa. After which, Britain and France intervene, forcing the Union to grudgingly accept a negotiated peace.The main story picks up in 1881. In the peace settlement, the Confederacy picked up not only their core states but also Kentucky and the Indian Territory (Oklahoma). Yet, the CSA lacks access to the Pacific. To solve that problem, CSA President Longstreet has negotiated a purchase of Chihuahua and Sonora from the Empire of Mexico. The USA, which is spoiling for a rematch, decides to treat that purchase as a casus belli. HOW FEW REMAIN is the story of the war that follows-the Second War Between the States. (My American History teacher back home in Virginia would have called it the Second War of Northern Aggression.) As usual with Turtledove, there are a vast number of sub-plots to keep track of, but the book is replete with nice touches that strike me as plausible: **The CSA had absorbed Cuba, a longstanding goal of the southern states before the Civil War. **An embittered Abraham Lincoln still leads the radical wing of the Republican Party, but has begun flirting with socialism. **President Longstreet-after the Civil War Longstreet became active in Republican politics (of all things). the idea that he would become the CSA's president is thus plausible, as is his pragmatic views of race. **Longstreet decides the CSA must free its slaves so as to ensure British and French support. In the real civil war, popular abolitionist sentiment was a major factor in those power's failure to intervene (especially true of Britain). **Teddy Roosevelt raises a volunteer regiment to fight the Anglo-Canadians. Just as he raised the Rough Riders in the Spanish-American war. **The immigrant industrial proletariat of a more embittered and economically impoverished USA prove more receptive to socialism than did US workers in our time-line. **German military attache Alfred von Schlieffen sees in Lee's 1862 campaign the model for what becomes Imperial Germany's Schlieffen plan for the invasion of France...a sweeping hook around your main target to cut it off and defeat the foe's army in the field. (Norman Schwartzkopf used the same strategy in the Gulf war.)If there are flaws with this book, they are few: (1) One sub-plot focuses on Sam Clemens as a San Francisco newspaper editor. This proves a slightly hack

'How Few Remain' is the precursor to Turtledove's 'Great War' series and is infinatly more interesting. After the Union fails to subdue the southern revolt in the 'war of secession,' the Confederate States of America attempt to annex key Mexican territory. This has the US more than a little worried as the deal would extend the US/CS border considerably. After the CS refuses to yeild to the US on this issue war ensues. Turtledove's knack for creating alternate histories is amazing, and his treatment of historical figures within those histories is also amazing. A Socialist Lincoln? A beaten Frederick Douglas? Mormons up in arms? While the stories are entertaining the reader must blink his eye at certain aspects of the history, most notably the fact that the Union and the Confederacy enjoy a realtivly even economic status. Also, one of the fundimental tennants of Mormonism is to obey 'the law of the land.' Putting these relatively minor points aside, 'How Few Remain' is a wonderful exploration of 'What if.'

Harry Turtledove is in a perilous position -- with books such as GUNS OF THE SOUTH and WORLDWAR: IN THE BALANCE he has high expectations to meet. With HOW FEW REMAIN, he meets them -- and betters them. Every year hundreds of books appear using the Civil War and its aftermath as their launch point. Turtledove takes us on a journey both startlingly original and yet chillingly plausible. The British and French had decided to intervene on the Confederate side in 1862, and only McClellan's unlikely victory at Antietam stopped them. Those three cigars and Lee's Order 191... Yet my greatest pleasure in HOW FEW REMAIN was not the masterly historical extrapolation, but the characters themselves. Nothing in fiction is more difficult than catching the authentic voice of a great speaker or writer, yet Turtledove succeeds triumphantly with two; Sam Clemens, in this timeline a newspaper editor who never left San Francisco, and Abraham Lincoln -- aged, weary, burdened by the sorrow of a lost war, yet still fighting for freedom with all his wisdom, iron will, shrewdness, and cool political calculation. Bravo! I look forward with impatience to the sequels, which deal with that other great turning point of Western civilization, the Great War of 1914-1918. As Woodrow Wilson of the CSA and Teddy Rooseveldt of the USA declare war in 1914, the world will hold its breath!