The Last Full Measure
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of the epic Lost Fleet series comes a story of a nightmarish America that could have been—and the Civil War that would set her free once more…
America, 1863: the dream of the Founding Fathers has become a nightmare. The ideals of freedom and individualism have fallen to tyranny, corruption and greed. Wealthy industrialists of the North and slave-holding plantation owners of the South now hold power through the might of the military and puppet politicians—and all who defy them are declared traitors to the United States of America.
Condemned for daring to speak against the government, Prof. Joshua Chamberlain is on his way to a penal plantation when his prison train is captured by the Army of the New Republic—a growing force of courageous soldiers who wish to restore the United States to its original righteous path. Joining a company of heroes with names such as Hancock, Longstreet and Armistead, Chamberlain finds himself joining the fight for freedom. But to win that freedom—and keep it—the rebellion needs a leader who is not a soldier, but a living symbol of the cause with the wisdom and fortitude to lead America back into the light.
Chamberlain knows exactly where to find such a leader. A man who is currently being held in the most secure and dangerous prison in the country, where his treasonous ideals cannot be heard. A man whose refusal to bow to those who proudly claim slavery as a way of life has already made him a legend. A man they must rescue at all costs…
A man called Lincoln.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this tedious alternate-history novella, a brutal dictatorship rules 1863 America through a corrupt partisan military, secret kangaroo courts, and control of the press. Campbell (the Lost Fleet series) introduces Abraham Lincoln as he is being sentenced to a lifetime of solitary confinement for stirring up anti-government sentiment. His codefendant, intrepid rhetoric professor Joshua Chamberlain, is sent off to 40 years of labor on a Southern plantation. They are soon rescued by members of the Army of the New Republic, which is fighting to restore America to its former democratic glory. From there, the story turns into a tiresome litany of military tactics as the freedom-loving citizens' army fights both the entrenched Southern money interests and the evil federal autocrats. The characters periodically speechify about freedom and liberty in stilted style, and Chamberlain's prebattle exhortation to the troops is no St. Crispin's Day speech. Campbell presumably meant to write an effective cautionary tale about government taking away liberties. Maybe one day he will.