Rally Cry

Rally Cry (1990) is the first novel in William Forstchen's Lost Regiment series of science fiction novels. The book follows the Union Army's 35th Maine Volunteer Infantry and 44th New York Light Artillery as they board a transport ship, the Ogunquit, in City Point, Virginia on January 2, 1865. Their mission is to take place in the amphibious assault of Fort Fisher, the Confederate fort defending Wilmington, North Carolina.

Caught in a strong storm soon after entering the Atlantic Ocean, they are fighting for their lives 400 miles (640 km) southwest of Bermuda (in or near the Bermuda Triangle) when a blinding light appears, swells, and envelops the ship while rendering the men aboard unconscious. They awake to find themselves transported to a different world. They quickly find friends and enemies in this new world where past civilizations from Earth were transported including feudal Russians, ancient Romans and Carthaginians, Zulus and others.

The planet has many animals, some from the Ice Age megafauna of the Earth and others from totally alien worlds. In addition - as the soldiers of the 35th Maine rapidly discover - humans are not the dominant form of life on this planet, which is called Valennia. Rather, humans are the enemies and sometime cattle of nine-foot-tall alien nomads. Valennia, additionally, is smaller than the Earth. There are fewer and smaller freshwater oceans, gravity is lighter, and most of the land masses are contiguous.

Rally Cry is divided into two books. The first book describes the 35th Maine's initial voyage and passage into Valennia via a "tunnel of light". In book two, Keane and his men prepare for the coming of the Tugars, the northernmost group of Horde aliens.