The Civil War Series

The American Civil War: Following the election of anti-slavery President-elect Abraham Lincoln, the Southern States of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas have all officially left the United States of America.

Lincoln follows up with the call for a 75,000-soldier army to be levied to invade the South and suppress the breakaway states. The move is quickly followed by Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee, which have not yet seceded, to join the Confederacy rather than supply troops to fight their Southern neighbors.

The United States of America is no more, and the future of the country will be decided on the battlefield. The first major clash between the two armies happens a few months later, at the Battle of Bull Run. On the Union side, the troops are led by a man of considerable reputation, Brigadier General Irvin McDowell, while the Confederate Army is led by a hero of the American-Mexican War, newly appointed Commander-in-Chief Robert E. Lee.

Thanks to Lee's methodical approach to the battle and his background as an engineer, the rebel forces fight from a well-prepared position and then counterattack with vigor when the Union troops falter. The battle ends with the Northern Army severely defeated and then routed, as its troops retreat in a panicked flight back toward Washington, D.C. Two days later and with as much luck as grit, the rebels manage to storm the Capital, and the entire Union is thrown into unimaginable chaos.

Follow the war of the generals like Lee, Johnston, McDowell or others like Stonewall Jackson and President Lincoln, but also of the soldiers who fought it, like Volunteer soldier James Walker of the 1st Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment, William "Bill" Gaines of the 1st Virginia Rifles, or else Private Samuel McCord of the 7th North Carolina Militia as he defends Fort Hatteras against the Union Navy, and much more!

This is the story of the American Civil War as it might have been.