Review: By Force of Arms by Billy Bennett

Guest post by A.J. Nolte.

Let me confess at the outset that I do not like negatively reviewing books. As an aspiring author who has yet to finish my first novel, I always try to give the benefit of the doubt to those who have. Let me also say that By Force of Arms, Billy Bennett's sweeping history of the Second American Civil War that never was, is not an entirely a bad book. All that said, there are a couple of really glaring flaws that will, I think, probably deter a lot of readers from buying the book.

The premise of the book is actually a pretty common starting point for Confederate victory scenarios: the survival of Stonewall Jackson after the Battle of Chancellorsville, his more aggressive actions on the first day of Gettysburg, total Confederate victory in the Battle of Fredericksburg and the intervention of the European countries to push Lincoln to the negotiating table. So far its plausible, and unlike many modern alternate historians, Bennett does not over-estimate the British willingness to lend the Confederates a helping hand. While you see a lot of alternate historians (cough, Turtledove, cough) envisioning a permanent strategic alliance between Britain and the Confederacy, I think this dramatically under-estimates the anti-slavery sentiment of the British public, and over-estimates Britain's willingness to get involved in North American affairs. Britain might go so far as to urge a diplomatic resolution to the conflict to tweak the Americans' tails on the cheap and give them something close to home to worry about, but openly allying with the Confederacy to the extent of actually sending troops to North America just does not seem plausible to me, and Bennett gets this right.

As the story moves forward, we find the north ready for a fight once again in 1869, with Confederate intervention in Mexico as the pretext. I also give Bennett some points here for the way in which he integrates new technologies onto the battlefield. The Gatling gun and breech-loading rifle certainly would have revolutionized warfare, and I doubt generals on either side, whose most recent experience with warfare would have been the Civil War of 1863, would really have understood the changes these new weapons would bring. Finally, on the positive side of the book, I actually found Bennett's characters to be interesting. From Buffalo Soldiers to Confederate scientists, war corespondents to members of the French Foreign Legion, Bennett did a good job inventing credible characters out of whole cloth.

Now, to those flaws I mentioned. First and foremost, this book really, really needed a content editor.  The occasional spelling and grammar mistakes I can live with, although other readers may have a lower pain threshold in this regard. When they occur on a very regular basis, and are combined with basic copy editing mistakes, it can become distracting. For example, part of the scenario rests on the premise that pro-Confederate Ohio congressman Clement Vallandigham wins the 1864 election, and guts the Union army (we'll come back to plausibility in a moment). Yet, later in the book, McClellan is listed as the President elected in 1864. This is probably an editing mistake left over from an earlier draft, but I found it confusing, and distracting.

On the one hand, Vallandigham being elected is fairly implausible. Even when a country loses a war, it does not tend to support those who opposed it. So McClellan's election is more plausible, but less likely to yield the result the author wants. There are a lot of bad things you can say about Little Mac, and I've said most of them, but the one thing I could never see him doing is gutting his beloved Army of the Potomac, which served, not incidentally, as the base of his power in 1864. I actually think the most likely outcome of the 1864 election would be a moderate, pro-war Democrat winning, maybe Dan Sickles for example if he performed well at Gettysburg, or a less radical Republican like William Seward taking the helm.

This leads me to the second, and in my view, most major flaw with By Force of Arms. I excluded several characters from my positive description above, and that was deliberate. Like the scenario itself, I am not sure the actions of Bennett's real historical people are actually plausible, and I think this owes something to the author's pro-Confederate slant. Let me clarify this point a bit. Bennett makes a conscience effort not to sugar-coat the racism throughout Confederate society, and one certainly doesn't get the impression that he thinks a victorious Confederacy would have been a utopia. I do think, however, he sees a pro-union bias in much of the American Civil War alternate history out there, and in trying to balance this, over-corrects. As a result, major portions of the book just don't pass the plausibility test for me.

I recognize this is sort of a hard line to draw with alternate history, and I also confess I'm a good bit more sympathetic to the Union than the Confederacy, and certainly more sympathetic to it than the author, so this may color my judgment. Nevertheless, it seems to me that all the major Union politicians and generals make horrible decisions which also happen to be out of character. Let's begin with the first union actor which does things that make no sense: the general electorate. Certainly, I can understand the desire to pick a war hero after the humiliation of defeat and, equally importantly, the economic and political weakness of the Vallandigham administration. Picking William T. Sherman, however, seems to have more to do with the author's desire to portray the U.S. President as a cartoon villain, complete with conspiratorial meetings with New York financiers and broad expansions of executive power. There are a host of staunchly anti-Confederate figures who would have made sense as victors in the 1868 election: Thaddeus Stephens, Charles Sumner, or generals such as John C. Fremont. However, the idea of a subordinate commander in the western theater who, as of 1863, hadn't earned the controversial notoriety he did during the 1864 campaign, steam-rolling his way into the White House is a little far-fetched.

This pales in comparison to the other bad decisions Union characters make in this book, seemingly without reason. Take the most egregious example: U.S. Grant, who is quite logically put in charge of the whole war effort, decides to concentrate the entire Union army into one massive hammer attacking Virginia. Sure, Grant believed in Union victory by attrition, and took personal command of the OTL force in the east. I could certainly see him doing something similar in a second Civil War scenario. However, the idea that he would simply allow the Confederates a free shot at California and basically ignore the  the western theater—where he spent the vast majority of his  military career including his service in the Civil War, is a little hard to swallow.

In addition to the often baffling decisions of Union generals, the Confederates never make any mistakes. Bennett doesn't account for "victory disease", the well-established phenomenon that winning armies often get over-confident and over-extended. Additionally, it tends to be the case that armies which lose wars have a better record of rapidly adopting innovations than armies that win. Add all this to the very traditional military culture of southern officers at the time, and it seems to me the Confederates adapt too quickly, and adopt new technologies far too readily, while the Union generals talk about lessons from the last war, but command with about the level of competence they showed in 1862.

On the whole, then, I thought the premise of By Force of Arms was interesting and decently plausible, the characters were good and the description of changes in warfare was well thought-out. For me, though, the book was just too badly-edited and unabashedly pro-Confederate. A more balanced perspective with the editing problems of this book, or a pro-Confederate narrative without some of the serious editing issues, would have probably gotten a better review. As it is, I think if a dash of "lost cause" fiction is your thing, you might be able to overlook some of the editing and content issues. Mr. Bennett is an author who shows some promise at imagining alternate impacts to alternate history scenarios. Unlike the Union army of his books, I hope his next offering will be able to overcome some of the weaknesses of this book.

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A.J. Nolte is a PHD candidate in international relations at Catholic University and an aspiring sci-fi and alternate history writer . He is knowledgeable in Byzantine, medieval, ACW, Cold War, Islamic and post-colonial history. Also, he'll read almost anything once if it's got an airship in it.

Problems with American Civil War Alternate Histories

According to Uchronia, American Civil War alternate histories are one of the two most written about alternate histories in the English language. It is easy to see why when you consider that the United States accounts for over 300 million of the English speaking world. Meanwhile, the war itself was a significant period of history.  It was one of the first examples of industrial war and one of the deadliest in American history. The legacy of the war is still felt in American culture as politicians and scholars endlessly debate the war.

Nevertheless, I fear that the topic in general often leads to bad alternate history.  A combination of factors often make these timelines implausible, whether they be misinterpretations of history or the personal bias of the author.  This article will explain some of the inherent issues with American Civil War alternate histories that authors should recognize before attempting to write their own alternate history based on the "War Between the States".

There are many potential points of divergence involving the war.  Four of the most popular PODs include the Battle of Gettysburg, the Trent Affair/British intervention, Lincoln surviving his assassination and time travel.  Other popular PODs include a harsher Reconstruction, the Battle of Shiloh, General Grant dying during the war, slave rebellions, the South being allowed to peacefully secede and Lincoln being assassinated earlier.  These PODs often create independent Confederacies, but not always.  Sometimes the South is peacefully allowed to secede, sometimes the North and South will reunite or sometimes the war will never end.  For the rest of the article, however, we will focus on the four most popular PODs and some of the issues inherent in each one.

First, the Battle of Gettysburg, which is by far the most popular of the American Civil War PODs.  Not only did it have the single largest number of casualties during the war, the battle is also described as a turning point of the war by historians.  Alternate history tends to accept that distinction by the sheer numbers of works that use an alternate outcome for the battle as the divergence point.  Yet is it a plausible POD?  William Forstchen, who wrote the Civil War Trilogy with Newt Gingrich and Albert Hanser, disagrees.  In his short story "Lee's Victory at Gettysburg… and Then What?", Forstchen speculates that even if the Confederates were victorious at the Battle of Gettysburg, weather, logistics, and the defenses of Washington would have combined to prevent any immediate Confederate victory in the American Civil War. 

This sheds doubt on whether the Battle of Gettysburg was an actual turning point of the war.  If it was a true jonbar hinge, the entire outcome of the war should be reversed if General Lee and his army were victorious.  In fact there is debate about whether Gettysburg was even a turning point.  Several historians have put forth other battles or events that are more significant to the outcome of the war.  This blogger feels that Battle of Gettysburg PODs reflect the human nature to pick a specific battle as being more important than others when deciding the outcome of the war, even if it means ignoring the other theaters of the conflict.

The next popular PODs are intervention by foreign powers (usually by the British after the Trent Affair) or time travellers.  I am combining these two divergences because they both equate to the same thing: outside intervention into the war.  Usually when someone else gets involved in the war, whether it is having British and French regiments at Gettysburg or time travellers handing General Lee an AK-47s, the Confederacy wins its independence. 

This reflects a major OTL concern of the Confederacy: that they pinned their hope of survival on military intervention by Britain and/or France.  If the Confederacy were desperate for international (or temporal) recognition and aid to win their independence, writing an alternate history where the Confederacy wins their independence without it may be implausible.  Since this includes such ASB elements as time travel, it should be a warning sign to any alternate historian interested in speculating on a Confederate victory.  You should tread carefully because it is very difficult to create a plausible alternate history involving the war without some sort of outside intervention.

Finally we get to President Lincoln surviving his assassination.  Abraham Lincoln led the country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis.  He successfully preserved the Union, while ending slavery, and promoting economic and financial modernization.  Lincoln has been consistently ranked by scholars as one of the greatest U.S. presidents, so there is no doubt why so many alternate historians speculate on what would happen had he lived.  This POD, however, often reflect the wishful thinking on the part of the author.  This is very apparent in Superman: A Nation Divided where the rocket from Krypton landed in Kansas in 1844 and Superman becomes an abolitionist superhero who got involved in the American Civil War.  Superman will go on to prevent Lincoln's assassination and afterwards Lincoln goes on to serve two full terms and becomes the most popular American president in history. 

Seeing Lincoln as national martyr and endowing him with a recognition of mythic proportions is very poor history, which makes even worse alternate history.  He was assailed by Radical Republicans for his moderate views on Reconstruction, War Democrats who desired more compromise and Copperheads who wanted peace with the South.  Modern historians have cast doubt to his credentials as the "Great Emancipator" and his pro-business and nationalist views make him more likable to modern American conservatives than liberals.  Alternate historians cannot get caught up in wishful thinking about Lincoln.  He was a politician who was just as capable of failing to make the right decision.  He was not a superhero and alternate historians should not paint him as such.

That brings me to my next point: the bias of the author is more often reflected in American Civil War alternate histories then in any other alternate history.  Thus we tend to see American Civil War alternate histories being categorized under two extremes: wanks and grimdarks.

Let us begin with the wanks.  For those who do not know, wanks are when a single country is always successful, steadily expands and generally does better than is plausible.  Cofenderate States of America wanks are not difficult to spot.  Often the CSA steps into the shoes of the OTL USA, becoming the world's sole superpower while easily handling the issues of slavery, emancipation and race relations (often better than OTL).  These types of alternate history often fall under the Lost Cause theory of the American Civil War. 

This movement tended to portray the Confederacy's cause as noble and most of its leaders as exemplars of old-fashioned chivalry, defeated by the Union armies through overwhelming force rather than martial skill. Proponents of the Lost Cause movement also condemned the Reconstruction that followed the Civil War, claiming that it had been a deliberate attempt by Northern politicians and speculators to destroy the traditional Southern way of life.  It is not difficult to find examples of Confederate wanks, especially on the Internet.

Many have criticized this movement, saying it gives a false view of history and even going as far as to say it promotes racism.  Nevertheless, being overly infatuated with the South makes for a poor alternate historian.  Wanks are rarely, if ever, plausible (unless you subscribe to the idea that we exist in an American wank).  In the case of the Confederacy, alternate historians often ignore major issues inherent with Confederacy, such as their economy which attributed to the Confederacy's defeat in the Civil War.  Alternate historians should not allow romantic notions of any culture to replace good, old-fashioned research.

This applies to the other extreme as well.  Grimdarks where the Confederacy is used as a historical villain can be just as implausible as wanks that paint the Confederacy as shining beacon of civilization in the altered timeline.   It is this blogger's personal opinion that history is rarely black and white.  While the Confederacy stood for things that are abhorrent to many people in modern day society, it is truly difficult to vilify them when you consider the number of people in slavery today is higher than in any point in history.  It is often hypocritical of a modern-day alternate historian to paint a picture of a grimdark Confederacy, when our own world can be pretty grimdark for millions of people under the bonds of slavery.

Yet it still happens.  Probably the most notable example is Harry Turtledove's Great War multi-series.  This eleven-volume series has an independent Confederacy transformed into a Nazi-analogue, complete with their very own Hitler and Holocaust.  I understand that Turtledove was trying to tell us that "it can happen here", but one still wonders whether it was plausible.  While I realize that every culture has the capacity to commit horrible atrocities on others, the long centuries of anti-Semitism that eventually brought about the OTL Holocaust do not translate well into how the South would deal with its black population, even after a major loss in a war.

This brings me to my last major point about American Civil War alternate histories: do your research.  It is possible to create a timeline that gives the reader a realistic portrayal of an independent Confederacy, especially in the Information Age where you have access to virtually infinite amounts of content on the war, along with the opinions of scholars with varying viewpoints. Do not allow your bias or the myths on the Civil War (many of which are still taught in American schools) to cause you to sacrifice the hard work necessary to make a plausible timeline.

Nevertheless, whether your American Civil War timeline leans to the implausible extremes or tries to be as realistic as possible, it is still likely to be controversial regardless of where you publish it. Many Americans are still fighting the Civil War in the public arena. Some of the worst arguments I have witnessed between alternate historians involved the American Civil War. Lost Cause enthusiasts, militant Lincoln advocates and plaid old Internet trolls will tear apart whatever you create.  So be warned when writing an American Civil War alternate history, a hard skin and cool demeanor is a must.

In conclusion, American Civil War alternate histories are very difficult to write.  The most common PODs tend to be implausible and should be avoided.  Do not allow your personal bias to replace good research and be ready to deal with intense criticism from every side.  I do not mean to discourage would be alternate historians who wish to tackle this significant period of history, just be warned that to do it right is a lot harder then it looks.

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Mitro is founder, editor and contributor of Alternate History Weekly Update. When he is not busy writing about his passion for alternate history, he spends his time working as a licensed attorney in the state of Illinois and dreams of being a published author himself one day.