The Last Full Measure

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. (June)