GettysburgMillions visit Gettysburg each year to walk the fields and hills where Joshua Chamberlain made his legendary stand Pickett went down to a defeat which doomed a nation but in defeat forever became a symbol of the heroic Lost Cause As the years passed and the scars healed the debate rather than drifting away has intensified It is the battle which has become the great what if of American history and the center of a dreamscape where Confederate banners finally do crown the heights above the townThe year is 1863 and General Robert E Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia are poised to attack the North and claim the victory that would end the brutal conflict But Lees Gettysburg campaign ended in failure ultimately deciding the outcome of the warLaunching his men into a vast sweeping operation of which the town of Gettysburg is but one small part of the plan General Lee acting as he did at Chancellorsville Second Manassas and Antietam displays the audacity of old He knows he has but one more good chance to gain ultimate victory for after two years of war the relentless power of an industrialized north is wearing the South down Lees lieutenants and the men in the ranks imbued with this renewed spirit of the offensive embark on the Gettysburg Campaign that many dream should have been The soldiers in the line Yank and Reb knew as well that this would be the great challenge the decisive moment that would decided whether a nation would die or be created and both sides were ready willing to lay down their lives for their CauseAn actionpacked and painstakingly researched masterwork by Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen Gettysburg stands as the first book in a series to tell the story of how history could have unfolded how a victory for Lee might have changed the destiny of the nation foreverGrant Comes EastGrant Comes East continues the story of a Confederate victory at Gettysburg as General Lee marches on Washington DC and launches an assault against one of the largest fortifications in the world At the same time Lincoln appoints General Ulysses S Grant commander of all Union forces Grant fresh from his triumph at Vicksburg races east bringing with him his hardened veterans from Mississippi to confront Lee Never Call RetreatIt is now August 22 1863 Lincoln and Grant are facing a collapse of political will to continue the fight to preserve the Union Lee desperately short of manpower must conserve his remaining strength while maneuvering for the killing blow that will take Grants army out of the fight and at last bring a final and complete victory for the SouthPursuing the remnants of the defeated Army of the Potomac up to the banks of the Susquehanna Lee is caught off balance when news arrives that General Ulysses S Grant in command of more than seventy thousand men has crossed that same river a hundred miles to the northwest at Harrisburg As General Grant brings his Army of the Susquehanna into Maryland Robert E Lees Army of Northern Virginia maneuvers for position Grant first sends General George Armstrong Custer on a mad dash to block Lees path toward Frederick and with it control of the crucial BO railroad which moves troops and supplies The two armies finally collide in Central Maryland a bloody weeklong battle ensues along the banks of Monocacy Creek This must be the final battle for both sides