Publisher's Synopsis
It's been nearly 160 years since Confederate General Robert E. Lee's legendary Army of Northern Virginia defeated the Union forces at Gettysburg; a crushing victory that led several European powers to recognize the Confederacy and pressured the war-weary North to agree to a bitter Armistice. Although a tenuous cease fire has existed ever since, a tense Demilitarized Zone bristling with jittery troops today scars a land divided between two Americas technically still at war.The Confederacy is slowly dying, however, a fact that both President Marcus Hopkins and his Southern counterpart Jesse Austin know all too well. Determined to bring the proud Southerners back into the Union peacefully, the Northern president agrees to an unprecedented peace summit with President Austin. Accompanied by a Union honor guard under the command of Sgt. Abraham Pope, President Hopkins heads to Richmond, Virginia, the rustic seat of the Confederacy.But there are many Southerners, such as the fiery Virginia Senator Zachary Lee, who remain adamantly opposed to reconciliation with the North. There are even some, such as the skulking band of fundamentalist terrorists known as "The Blood Tubs," who are prepared to kill for the cause of continued Southern independence.Led by the Senator's son Jebediah Lee, the Blood Tubs kidnap President Hopkins and Sgt. Pope's squad, hoping either to scuttle the peace talks forever or, better still, to ignite a Holy War to once and for all resolve the long-interrupted "Second War of American Independence."With Soviet troops poised to invade Texas from Mexico and the slavering European nations aligned on opposing sides of an American tinderbox ready to ignite like dried kindling, the world teeters on the brink of conflagration. It's up to Sgt. Pope and his brave band of reluctant grunts to not only preserve peace in America, but avoid World War II.Birdseye Station uses the Battle of Gettysburg, generally regarded as the "High Water Mark of the Confederacy" and a favorite source of "what-if" speculations in American history, as its starting point. Drawing on such modern day real world parallels as Korea, the Middle East and an apartheid-era South Africa, this action-filled saga weaves a gripping and plausible alternate history.
