The Guns of the South

The Guns of the South

Author	Harry Turtledove
Language	English
Genre	Alternate history novel
Publisher	Ballantine
Publication date	22 September 1992
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages	561 pp
ISBN	ISBN 0-345-37675-7, ISBN 0-345-38468-7
OCLC	26096611
Dewey Decimal	813/.54 20
LC Class	PS3570.U76 G86 1992

The Guns of the South (1992, ISBN 0-345-37675-7) is an alternate history novel set during the American Civil War by Harry Turtledove.

Plot introduction

The story deals with a group of time-travelling Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members who supply Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia with AK-47s and small amounts of other supplies (including nitroglycerine tablets for treating Lee's heart condition), leading to a Southern victory in the war.

Plot summary

It is March 1864, and the Confederacy is losing the war with the United States. Men with strange accents and oddly mottled clothing approach Robert E. Lee at the headquarters of the Army of Northern Virginia, demonstrating a rifle far superior to all other firearms of the time. The men call their organization "America Will Break" (or "AWB"), and offer to supply the Confederate army with these rifles, which they refer to as AK-47s. The weapons operate on chemical and engineering principles unknown to Confederate military engineers.

Soldiers are trained by the AWB men to use their new weapons, and ammunition is issued. Confederate morale improves considerably as the men prepare to meet Union forces in the 1864 campaign. They soon engage General Grant's men at the Second Battle of the Wilderness, and inflict a devastating defeat on the Army of the Potomac.

The AWB continue to offer inexplicable information and technology to the Confederacy, even providing Lee with nitroglycerin pills, which ease his chronic chest pains. Upon questioning their leader at length, Lee learns that they are time travelers from the year 2014, the 21st-century. The newcomers claim that white supremacy has not endured to the modern era, and that blacks in the future will eclipse whites. Lee is informed that unless a slave-holding South is allowed to endure into the 20th century, blacks will take over the world. A slave-owner himself, Lee is shocked by this revelation—he never thought Negroes capable of participating in government.

With the AWB's guns and some direct military aid from the racist South Africans, the Confederacy rapidly drives the Union forces back North and captures Washington, D.C., thus ending the Civil War. England and France recognize the Confederacy and President Lincoln is forced to accept Southern victory. Now the Confederacy has to determine its future political and social direction.

Confederate slaves freed during the war by Union troops violently resist returning to slavery. Lee, already dubious about slavery and respectful of the courage of the United States Colored Troops during the war, is soon convinced that continuing to enslave Negroes is both wrong and impracticable. The genie is already out of the bottle, and black guerrillas will continue to make trouble in the future. Some parts of the South had already lost many of their slaves during the war anyway. Despite threats by the Rivington men, Lee makes no effort to hide his views as he runs for president in 1867. The Rivington men convince Nathan Bedford Forrest to run against Lee on a pro-slavery ticket, and pour their considerable resources into Forrest's campaign. Lee, however, manages a narrow victory. Rather than continue to be a public adversary of Lee, however, Forrest concedes defeat and promises to help rally those who voted for him behind the new Confederate President.

At Lee's inauguration, AWB men attempt to assassinate him, resulting in the death of Lee's wife, Mary, various dignitaries and generals, and many civilians. The AWB offices in Richmond are seized after a fierce battle, and Lee enters the stronghold to find more technological marvels (such as light bulbs), along with a collection of books that document the increasing marginalization of racism from 1865 into the 21st century. Lee shows these books to Confederate congressmen, hoping that the future's nearly universal condemnation of slavery will convince the congressmen to vote for his plan for gradual abolition.

Confederate forces surround the town of Rivington and lay siege to it for several months. Acting on advice from former US Army lieutenant colonel Henry Pleasants, Confederate forces dig a tunnel under the AWB's lines and set off a massive amount of gunpower, breaking through and taking Rivington soon after. When their time machine is destroyed in the fighting, the surviving AWB members surrender. Andries Rhoodie, however, is killed by an enraged slave; Rhoodie's extreme racism had resulted in him being an exceptionally cruel master.

The Confederate Congress passes President Lee's abolition bill. Contemporaries have reproduced the nitroglycerin pills brought by the AWB, and Lee hopes, with their help, to live to see the effects of his plan for emancipation. Meanwhile, a few of the stranded South Africans agree to help the Confederacy replicate their 21st century technology from 2014, (as Lee fears the Union might want vengence against the Confederacy and already have their own duplicate of the AK-47) ensuring that the Confederacy will be the most technologically-advanced nation in the world for many decades to come.

Awards

The book won the John Esten Cooke Award for Southern Fiction in 1993.

References in other works

• Several of the characters, or at least South African people with the same name, appeared in S. M. Stirling's 2003 novel Conquistador, where they are killed. A copy of the Turtledove book is seen on a bookshelf in Stirling's novel.

• In the 26 December 2008 submission of Least I Could Do, a webcomic by Ryan Sohmer and Lar Desouza, the main character, Rayne, is reading a copy of Guns of the South. He initially misinterprets it as historically accurate and is eventually inspired to write his own historical fiction.

See also

• American Civil War alternate histories

External links

• Americanisms in Harry Turtledove's The Guns of the South, Tatu Ahponen, 2003 (including detailed summary)
• 2010 review by Jo Walton
• Review by Mark Taha