The Union's doom seems near in June of '63 as Robert E. Lee invades the North. Desperate, President Lincoln names an obscure major general to lead his broken army and defend Washington. Brilliant but colorless, George G. Meade picks the place for the Union's tattered forces to make their stand: Gettysburg. For two days the armies fight to a bloody deadlock. Then Lee orders his final attack, the Union line holds and Rebels fall or flee. Meade wins the Civil War's pivotal battle, but Lee withdraws to fight another day. What if Meade counterattacks? He might crush the Confederate army and end the Civil War two years early.

Thus John Duke Merriam retells Gettysburg's uncertain preamble, heroic struggle and "what-if" aftermath. With inventions like a spy ring of slaves, and exciting characters in blue, in gray, in mufti and negligees, Merriam describes what might have been: Peace comes sooner; Lincoln governs to rebuild the South and repair the Union. Larger than a novel of the Civil War, Merriam's epic tells what might have been in and after the battle was fought "that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom."

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