What if the Southern Confederacy had won the war? That question played upon my young mind when an article in Look magazine posed it back in 1960. The question seemed far from seditious on the eve of the war's centennial, for America had not yet allowed revisionism to destroy the history of what was called the War Between the States.

Many may disagree with my version of which battles were critical to the struggle for Southern independence, the form and timing of the peace agreement, and what lay in the future. It is, however, my hope this alternative history places historical events in their correct context - and my tale is entertaining.

Of course, the South did not win the war, and most of what Americans think they know about that conflict has been passed down by the victors. I ask those who enter here to leave that world behind them. Consider instead that racial tensions in our present day are partly due to policies implemented after the war ended.