What if Lee had avoided defeat at Gettysburg? What if a military stalemate had developed, coupled with growing antiwar sentiment? What if Lincoln had been defeated in the 1864 election and Great Britain had recognized the Confederacy? What would have been the careers of an independent Confederate States of America and a defeated United States?

"No historian has thought through such 'what if' questions as seriously as Roger Ransom," says the Washington Post Book World. A master of historical analysis, Roger L. Ransom follows the consequences of the "what if" scenario over an extended period of time, exploring such issues as the fate of slavery in a CSA, how the economies of the USA and the CSA would have developed, and how their foreign policies would have differed. The result is a fascinating historical vision that is a source of insight into the critical events of the Civil War period as they actually happened.