Grant Comes East

After the trilogy’s Confederate victory at Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee drives toward Washington in an attempt to convert battlefield success into political victory. Abraham Lincoln refuses to concede the Union cause and turns to Ulysses S. Grant, fresh from the western theatre, to create a force capable of stopping Lee. The war’s centre of gravity shifts rapidly toward the capital and the approaches to Maryland.

The novel follows two armies improvising under enormous pressure: Lee must attack before his numerical weakness becomes decisive, while Grant races east, absorbs shattered Union formations and prepares a counterstroke. Political resolve, railroads, fortifications and command rivalries matter as much as battlefield courage, extending the counterfactual history into a contest over whether the Union can survive its Gettysburg disaster.