Settling Accounts: Return Engagement - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

Following the return of the occupied states of Kentucky and Houston to the Confederacy in early 1941, President Jake Featherston breaks his solemn vow and re-militarizes them, essentially declaring war against the United States in act if not in word. US President Al Smith hurries to prepare for war, but his country is sent reeling by the Confederate attack into Ohio on June 22, 1941.

The Yankees under General Abner Dowling and Colonel Irving Morrell fight desperately, but by 1942 the Confederate Army has reached the shores of Lake Erie and cut the country in two. Meanwhile, the Mormons in Utah have once again revolted, prompting a swift response from the U.S. Army. A US counterattack in Virginia bogs down, and the Confederates are preparing a second offensive for the summer of 1942 when Al Smith is killed in a bombing raid on the capital city of Philadelphia. A shaken Charlie La Follette is sworn in as President of a nation fighting for its survival.

Meanwhile, in the Confederacy, the murderous persecution of Blacks is escalating towards a full-scale genocide, similar to our timeline's Holocaust. Another hint of things to come is provided when Featherston makes a strategic blunder in rejecting the offer of a physics professor to start research towards producing nuclear weapons, believing that the professor just wants government money to finance an abstruse scientific project - while it is hinted that the US does start a version of the Manhattan Project, located in this case in the state of Washington and overseen by Franklin Roosevelt - in this world an Assistant Secretary of War harboring no presidential ambitions.

Works by Harry Turtledove
Videssos books
Videssos cycle
  • The Misplaced Legion
  • An Emperor for the Legion
  • The Legion of Videssos
  • The Swords of the Legion
The Tale of Krispos
  • Krispos Rising
  • Krispos of Videssos
  • Krispos the Emperor
Time of Troubles
  • The Stolen Throne
  • Hammer and Anvil
  • The Thousand Cities
  • Videssos Besieged
  • The Bridge of the Separator
The Race or
Worldwar series
Worldwar Tetralogy
  • In the Balance
  • Tilting the Balance
  • Upsetting the Balance
  • Striking the Balance
Colonization Trilogy
  • Second Contact
  • Down to Earth
  • Aftershocks
  • Homeward Bound
Southern Victory
a.k.a. Timeline-191
Second Mexican War
  • How Few Remain
Great War Trilogy
  • American Front
  • Walk in Hell
  • Breakthroughs
American Empire Trilogy
  • Blood and Iron
  • The Center Cannot Hold
  • The Victorious Opposition
Settling Accounts Tetralogy
  • Return Engagement
  • Drive to the East
  • The Grapple
  • In at the Death
Darkness
  • Into the Darkness
  • Darkness Descending
  • Through the Darkness
  • Rulers of the Darkness
  • Jaws of Darkness
  • Out of the Darkness
War Between the Provinces
  • Sentry Peak
  • Marching Through Peachtree
  • Advance and Retreat
Hellenic Traders
  • Over the Wine Dark Sea
  • The Gryphon's Skull
  • The Sacred Land
  • Owls to Athens
Crosstime Traffic
  • Gunpowder Empire
  • Curious Notions
  • In High Places
  • The Disunited States of America
  • The Gladiator
  • The Valley-Westside War
Days of Infamy series
  • Days of Infamy
  • End of the Beginning
Scepter of Mercy
  • The Bastard King
  • The Chernagor Pirates
  • The Scepter's Return
Opening of the World
  • Beyond the Gap
  • The Breath of God
  • The Golden Shrine
Atlantis series
  • Opening Atlantis
  • The United States of Atlantis
  • Liberating Atlantis
The War That Came Early
  • Hitler's War
  • West and East
  • The Big Switch
  • Coup d'Etat
Supervolcano series
  • Eruption
  • All Fall Down
  • Supervolcano
  • Maelstrom
Non-series books
  • Agent of Byzantium
  • Between the Rivers
  • The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump
  • Conan of Venarium
  • Counting Up, Counting Down
  • Departures
  • A Different Flesh
  • Down in the Bottomlands
  • Earthgrip
  • Every Inch a King
  • Fort Pillow
  • Give Me Back My Legions!
  • The Guns of the South
  • Household Gods
  • In the Presence of Mine Enemies
  • Justinian
  • Kaleidoscope
  • The Man with the Iron Heart
  • Noninterference
  • Reincarnations
  • Ruled Britannia
  • Thessalonica
  • The Two Georges
  • A World of Difference

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