How Few Remain

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

How Few Remain is Harry Turtledove's excellent beginning to his Southern Victory (AKA "Timeline-191") series. It takes place in a universe where General Robert E. Lee's Special Order 191 was never discovered by Union troops, thus dramatically changing the course of history.

For those of you who aren't Civil War buffs, Order 191 contained extensive information about Lee's proposed troop movements. Because George McClellan had this information, he was able to position his troops in areas to ambush them. The Battle of Antietam was the bloodiest battle of the Civil War, and--both morally and mortally--diminished the Confederates. It was perhaps the most vital turning point in the entire war.

And in this universe, it never happened.

Lee marched into Washington, and the Confederacy was recognized as a nation by England and France. Abraham Lincoln was never assassinated. Both Stonewall Jackson and Jeb Stuart survive the war. Samuel Clemens stays in San Francisco, instead of writing fiction.

In short: Hilarity Ensues.

The story picks up in 1881, when the Confederates' purchase of the Mexican territories of Chiuhuahua and Sonora prompts U.S. President James G. Blaine to declare war on the Confederacy.

The story follows, in turn, eight historical figures:

  • Thomas J. Jackson, old "Stonewall", General-in-Chief of the Confederate Army, is ready and eager to strike at the Yankees once more.
  • General J.E.B. Stuart defends the new Confederate territories from the Yankees, the Apaches under Geronimo being first his allies and then his foes.
  • Colonel George A. Custer, a frustrated Yankee cavalryman, serves on the Great Plains and helps put down the Mormon rebellion in Utah.
  • Theodore Roosevelt is a wealthy, patriotic young Montana rancher who raises his own cavalry force, known as the "Unauthorized Regiment".
  • Frederick Douglass, a former slave and a fiery orator, observes the Union forces at war.
  • Colonel Alfred von Schlieffen serves as the German military attaché to the United States.
  • Samuel Clemens is a sharp-witted newspaper editor in San Francisco.
  • Former President Abraham Lincoln, influenced by the writings of Karl Marx, is an orator struggling to keep the Republican Party united in the cause of the working man.
Tropes used in How Few Remain include:
  • Anyone Can Die: As the end draws near, Jeb Stuart and Tom Custer both die. Tom is in battle, so it's sad but not surprising--but killing off one of the main characters, out of nowhere, is a real shock.
  • Allohistorical Allusion: A Turtledove specialty. Overlaps a lot with the Historical In Jokes.
  • Alternate History
  • The American Civil War
  • Angry Black Man: Don't get Frederick Douglass angry. Just don't.
  • Antebellum America: Unlike some attempts to show what the world would be like if the Confederates won, How Few Remain actually explores socio-economic and cultural issues that don't have to do with slavery.
  • A Worldwide Punomenon: Roosevelt dubs the coach he uses for going into Helena (the nearest large town to his rance) "the Helena Handbasket".
  • Badass: Custer and Roosevelt live their lives doing this. The rest of the main cast have their own, in their own ways.
    • Lincoln and Douglass are both retired badasses, who are really getting too old for this, but that doesn't stop either of them for a minute.
  • Badass in Charge: Roosevelt and Custer.
  • The Captain: Custer was born to be the Captain, and will do anything to show people how awesome he is as a commander.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: According to George Custer, his brother Tom is more of this than he is.
  • The Cavalry: Custer loves being the Cavalry.
    • The Unauthorized Regiment does this too.
  • Colonel Badass: Yet again, Custer and Roosevelt. Eventually, they have to compete.
  • Cult Colony: The Mormons. Plus, having Custer stationed there...
  • Da Editor: Sam Clemens has become one--complete with chomping cigars.
    • Unlike most instances of this trope, where we mostly see Da Editor shouting at people, we actually get to see a lot of his editorials. And they're awesome.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Abe Lincoln basically walks around doing this all the time. Oh, and being a Dirty Communist.
    • And Sam Clemens, of course. Who seems to speak pure Snark.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Hosea Blackford, for later in the series. He's just a kid from a mining town who runs into Lincoln on the train.
  • For Want of a Nail: The novel--and the ten-novel series that follows it--is all happening because one tiny detail, the finding of Order 191. Which could so very easily have happened in this universe. And if it did, it would have (if not necessarily guaranteed a Confederate victory) given Lee an incredible strategic advantage which might well have changed the course of the war.
    • It's even lampshaded in the prologue, where the messenger who dropped the Order is effusively telling the two soldiers who noticed it how grateful he is, and how "this could have cost us the war!"

Then, as he rides off, one of them turns to the other and says "Lost the whole war? He don't think much of himself and the papers he carries, now does he?"

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