Characters / Timeline 191 Confederate States of America

This is a listing of characters from the Confederate States of America in Timeline-191.

For the main character index, see here

For the United States, see here

Confederate States of America

In General

Confederate Flag on the Eve of the Second Great War

^{Freedom Party Flag} 

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• Culture Chop Suey: Having survived far longer than it did in our timeline, Confederate society would borrow cultural and other elements from its British and French allies. Also crosses over with Allohistorical Allusion in some cases for instances where it's not borrowed from another nation in-universe.
  • The Great War-era Confederate Army has traded the famous gray uniforms of the American Civil War for British Khaki, called "butternut" by Confederates, along with their Tredegar rifles being modelled after the British made Lee-Enfield rifles and their helmets being a version of the Helmet, Steel, Mark I (or Brodie helmet). And their very first barrel resembles the British Mark I tank with it's rhomboid shape, armament of two cannons and three machine guns.
  • Jake Featherston during his wartime service as an artillery sergeant operated a Confederate copy of the French Canon de 75 modèle 1897 field gun.
  • Second Great War Confederate soldiers are described as wearing what are essentially World War II American G.I. uniforms and a coal-scuttle helmet design.
• Crapsack World: Even before Featherston, Confederate society was hardly a laudable one for anyone outside of the elite social circles. The Whig Party, composed of the descendants of Southern elites who won the War of Secession, monopolized the Confederate government and military where it was essentially a de facto one party state. Even when they abolished slavery, a rigidly enforced racial caste system (comparable to Jim Crow and Apartheid era South Africa) was put in place to ensure the continued subservience of it's black populace. Poorer whites who fell outside of the elite social circles were only marginally better off than their black counterparts but united with elite whites in their disdain/hatred for blacks.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: Played with. The Confederacy has a rigid racial caste system with blacks firmly on the bottom but practical concerns with the shortage of man power during the Great War forces Confederate leadership to offer black men the opportunity serve in the military with the offer of citizenship.
  • The Confederacy also noticeably treated the Native tribes of Sequoyah^note  the name for Oklahoma in this world with a hands-off policy and even acted as a base for native tribes to launch raids into the U.S.
  • The Freedom Party's hatred of blacks did not extend to Latinos with many actually becoming supporters of the party as they promised to help breakup the big landowners that ruled over the states of Sonora and Chihuahua.
• Evil States of America: Played with. The C.S.A wasn't exactly an admirable nation even before the rise of Featherston but once it goes fully into Putting on the Reich it becomes obvious.
• Misplaced Nationalism: Confederates really, really do not like the United States. People from the U.S. are almost universally referred to as "damnyankees" by even the nicer Confederate characters. The feeling is largely mutual from United States' part.
• Happiness in Slavery: Heavily averted. At the start of the Great War, the caste system of the CSA is slavery in all but name, but most white CSA citizens seem to believe that the black population is perfectly content with the way things are. Accordingly, they never see The Red Rebellion coming, and after it happens, are enraged and horrified by what they see as treachery. The notion that the black population might have had good reason to feel oppressed never seems to occur to them.
• Moral Myopia: Successfully rebelling against the United States is a continued point of pride for Confederates but just about every white Confederate in the series treats the Red Rebellion by its oppressed black populace during the Great War as an unforgivable act of treachery.
• Oppressive States of America: Even before Featherston, Confederate government and society made sure to keep blacks as an explicitly oppressed underclass.
• Police State: By the eve of the Second Great War, Featherston and cronies have fully turned the semi-decentralized Confederacy into this.
• Putting on the Reich: Becomes an Americanized version of Nazi Germany under Jake Featherston and the Freedom Party (ie Nazi Party) in the 30s and 40s.
• Slobs vs. Snobs: A major social divide existing in the Confederacy since it's inception. Comes to a forefront in the post-Great War when Confederate aristocracy are knocked down a peg following their country's defeat and Featherston launches his political career on a wave of racial hatred and anti-elite populism.

Leadership

Jake Featherston

A bad-tempered artillery sergeant with the Army of Northern Virginia when we first meet him, Jake serves with relative distinction in the Great War, but is never promoted due to issues with his superior officers. This leads him to join the Freedom Party during the interwar years, eventually becoming the 13th President of the Confederacy. Based on Adolf Hitler, though without world-conquering ambitions, and somewhat more sane, if only just.

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• Bad Boss: Anyone who questions Jake winds up in a concentration camp.
• Beige Prose: His signature on the radio. Extremely blunt and direct in all his verbal dealings. Curiously subverted in the case of his book, Over Open Sights, which is quite long, and without much actual content. But instead of long, florid descriptions of the evils of the United States and black people, it's pretty much just the same basic thoughts over and over again, expressed in slightly different terms. Many characters describe it as a boring, unreadable, repetitive mess for the most part (thanks to Jake's Protection from Editors, since he's absolute dictator of the CSA by the time it's published), with some exciting bits.
• Big Bad: From The Victorious Opposition onwards. In a way, the entire story is about him after this point.
• The Butcher: "Jake the Snake."
• Catchphrase: "I'm Jake Featherston, and I'm here to tell you the truth..."
• Character Death: Shot dead by Cassius Madson at the end of In At The Death.
• Dark Messiah: For the CSA. The people who voted for Jake did so in the belief that he was the saviour who would put everything right and make the country great again. What they got was a genocidal madman with nothing on his mind but revenge.
• Determinator: Ludicrous quantities. Never, ever gives up, no matter what. Never forgets a grudge, a wrong, or even the smallest slight. Always settles accounts, or dies trying. Even when almost all of the CSA has been conquered, its armies destroyed, US armies completely unstoppable, capturing major cities without a fight, dropping nukes like candy, he still plans to continue the war from Texas and Louisiana.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Aims to kill all the blacks because he feels they screwed him out of a promotion to second lieutenant.
• Dissonant Serenity: His reaction to the U.S.'s dropping a superbomb on Newport News in retaliatory strike for him sneaking a superbomb into Philadelphia is to just nonchalantly snap his fingers and say "who cares?".
• Dystopia Justifies the Means: Jake's end goal is a Confederate States in which all power resides in his hands, all freedoms are curtailed, the United States are crippled, and all the African-Americans are dead.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Jake thinks that Russian racism towards Jews and Ottoman racism towards Armenians is idiotic, seeing as Jews and Armenians are white men, at least in his mind. He also bawls out Patton for striking a shell shocked soldier, bluntly informing him that if he does it again, it will be the end of his career.
• Evil Is Petty: Seeks to annihilate the CSA's black population because he feels they screwed him out of a promotion to Second Lieutenant.
• Final Solution: To the "nigger problem."
• From Nobody to Nightmare: From an angry, bitter Confederate veteran to genocidal mastermind and Adolf Hitler stand-in.
• Glorious Leader: For the Freedom Party and the CSA.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Jake has an explosive temper and can be set off at the drop of a pin.
• I Will Fight Some More Forever: His plan after the US forces completely overrun Georgia; Featherston was going to continue to lead the fight from Texas and Louisiana. Unlike his Real Life counterpart Hitler, who shot himself, Featherston is shot by Cassius Madison after his plane is forced down.
• Jerkass: Even before the events of American Empire and Settling Accounts, Jake was a jackass.
• Karmic Death: Shot by Cassius Madison, a black man whose family was killed in a death camp.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: "Get us some motorcars, and—" *bang*
• Lean and Mean: Rage keeps Jake rangy well into his fifties.
• Limited Advancement Opportunities: After Jake's commander, Jeb Stuart III, kills himself in a futile attack (to regain his honor after the black servant he protected from investigation turned out to be a highly placed Red Rebellion leader), his powerful father makes sure Jake is blamed for it. Potter tells Jake that, thanks to the elder Stuart, he could serve in the Army until he died and would never advance past the rank of Sergeant.
• Mercy Kill: Performs one on a fatally injured Lulu. "Feels like I just shot my own luck."
• Mood-Swinger: Jake can flip from nice to nasty in seconds. Once he gets himself elected President and sets up his dictatorship, this makes him extremely dangerous to be around.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: An interesting example, since in this setting, Jake and his Freedom Party are the original Nazis, preaching a thoroughly Americanised version of fascism.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: He's an Americanised Adolf Hitler.
• Pet the Dog: With his secretary, Lulu Maddox, who he goes out of his way to be nice to. He also chews out General Patton for slapping a soldier with PTSD.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: The CSA as a whole is badly prejudiced against the black population, but Jake, as the son of an overseer who loathed all blacks, is a stronger example than most. And that's without getting into what he does after becoming President...
  • Played with. He genuinely hates blacks but is able to work with Mexicans and Jews with little problem.
• The Power of Hate: Jake's hate is the only thing that fuels him by the end of the series. It keeps him going when nothing else can.
• President Evil: Elected President of the CSA in 1933. It's all downhill from there.
• Revenge: His motivation in American Empire and Settling Accounts.
  • Revenge Before Reason: Prioritises destroying the CSA's black population over winning the war.
  • Revenge by Proxy: Essentially.
• Rousing Speech: Discovers a talent for public speaking during the interwar years, which serves him well after he joins up with the Freedom Party.
• Slobs Versus Snobs: Featherston came from humble means, and he has little use for "aristocratic" officers that populate the Confederate Army. Even more so when they deny him the promotion and command he believes he deserves.
• Social Darwinist: "If we don't win, it'll be on account of we don't deserve to."
• Start of Darkness: Jake wasn't particularly likeable even at the start of the series, but being made a scapegoat for the Red Rebellion and denied promotion for it, even though he took initiative and reported suspicious behavior of his superior's black servant, is what starts Jake on the road he'll take.
• Sympathetic P.O.V.: From American Front right on up until In At The Death.
• 13 Is Unlucky: Thirteenth President of the CSA.
• Villain Protagonist: Jake's a bastard when the series starts, and he doesn't get any better as it goes along. In fact his evil and his importance to the story grow together, and by the time of Settling Accounts he's both the worst person in the setting and the one whom the story revolves around.
• Villainous Friendship: A Type IV with Clarence Potter, as despite their mutual dislike for one another, Potter is the closest thing Jake has to an actual friend.
• Villainous Virtues: As an artilleryman, Jake proves himself to be committed, courageous, and determined. He repeatedly goes on fighting under withering attacks, and ends up commanding the entire artillery company (and doing it well), despite still being a sergeant. He's an evil guy, even before he becomes the Big Bad, but no one can accuse him of being a coward.

Other Government / Party Officials

Willy Knight

A Confederate veteran hailing from Texas who helped found the far-right and ultranationalist Redemption League following the end of the Great War. Sharing much in common with Featherston's Freedom Party and being politically stronger in the western states of the Confederacy, Knight merged the Redemption League with the Freedom Party in what was supposed to be a unification between two equal partners. In reality, however, Featherston outmaneuvered Knight, the Redemption League was swallowed by the Freedom Party, and Knight was left in a subordinate position.

Knight was elected as Vice-President on the same ticket as Featherston but soon found himself chaffing as a powerless figurehead in Featherston's regime. When Featherston had the Confederate Constitution amended to allow for a President to be re-elected, Knight launched an unsuccessful coup attempt that saw him forced to resign and shipped off to Camp Dependable where he was killed shortly after the Second Great War began.

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• Always Someone Better: He and Featherston share many career similarities but Jake is far away his superior in charisma and political leadership.
• The Dragon: Against his wishes as he envisioned the merger of the Freedom Party and Redemption League meant he and Featherston would be equals in leadership.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Of a sort. He launched his unsuccessful coup when Featherston had the Confederate Constitution amended to allow a President to be elected multiple times. Which Knight saw as a blatant power grab and Featherston trying to reshape the Confederacy to be entirely around Jake.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: For Ernst Röhm, the leader of the SA ("Storm Battalion") of the Nazi Party and one of Hitler's chief lieutenants in his rise to power. He was executed by Adolf Hitler in the Night of the Long Knives when he became a threat to Hitler's power.
  • The party he founds, The Redemption League, is also likely a nod to the Real Life historical group of the Redeemers who emerged in the post-Civil War Reconstruction era South.
• Vice President Who?: What Featherston intended when he made him Vice-President. Almost blows up in his face when Knight launches an unsuccessful coup attempt.

Ferdinand Koenig

Long-time Freedom Party associate of Featherston's, and possibly his only real friend, or at least the only one allowed to use Featherston's given name. One of the oldest Freedom Party members, he joined even before Featherston. Supported Featherston's coup against the Freedom Party's ineffective founder Anthony Dresser, on the assumption that he'd be Featherston's Vice-Presidential nominee. Ultimately, Featherston's paranoia (i.e. that Koenig might have Featherston assassinated to become President himself) lead him to snub Koenig for Willy Knight, the leader of a powerful Texas analogue to the Freedom Party. Featherston makes him Attorney General instead, chosen because it is outside the line of succession, and convinces him that it is the better office, as Featherston has "big plans" for it. Ultimately becomes Featherston's chief non-military subordinate, and responsible for most domestic matters and policy in the Confederate States, including the Final Solution-analogue. Based on Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Göring, with a good helping of Rudolf Hess in the mix.

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• The Dragon: Alongside Patton he's the closest thing Jake has.

• Fat Bastard: He gains some serious weight during his time as Attorney General under Featherston, going from a lean and muscular to being unable to walk without wheezing.
• Final Solution: A big part of it.
• Honest Advisor: One of the few people Jake Featherston will listen to in matters regarding the Freedom Party.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Bears a strong resemblance to Himmler, Göring, and Hess, all rolled into one unpleasant character.
  • Like Himmler, Koenig rose to become the second most powerful individual in the state. And Koenig's position as Attorney General is quite similar to Reich Minister of the Interior (one of the many offices Himmler occupied), while like Himmler being the most senior official to oversee the Holocaust, Koenig was the most senior official to oversee the Population Reduction.
  • Koenig's descent into obesity is very reminiscent of Göring's. Not only was Göring an party member in it's early days, but Göring was also the second highest ranking individual in the regime (the only difference between Göring and Koenig is that Koenig did not fall out of favor with Featherston, like Göring did with Hitler). Also, Koenig was put on trial and sentenced to death for his crimes, like just Göring (major difference being that Koenig was hanged, unlike Göring who avoided that fate with cyanide).
  • Koenig's similarities with Hess are that Hess was also an party member in it's early days, his position as Deputy Führer seems broadly similar to that Koenig was Featherston's running mate for Vice President, Hess had also contributed to the Holocaust ^note in that Hess had signed into law, the Nuremberg Laws that would set the foundation for the Holocaust and that Hess was loyal to Hitler.
• Number Two: To Jake following his attainment of the position of Attorney-General. He's not in the line of succession, but he is the second most powerful man in the Freedom Party and the CSA, given the emasculation of Congress, the courts, and the VP.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Given that he runs the camps, this goes without saying.
• Secret Police: All police in the Confederacy, secret and otherwise, ultimately report to Koenig.
• State Sec: The Freedom Party Guards (read as: SS) are under Koenig's purview.
• Undying Loyalty: His loyalty to Jake is one of his defining characteristics.

Saul Goldman

Jewish member of the Freedom Party, starts out as the owner of the first radio network in Richmond. Becomes an important ally of Featherston, who appreciates the potential power of radio, and who uses his network to publicize himself and the Freedom Party. Eventually becomes Featherston's Chief of Communications (read: propaganda), and consolidates pretty much every media outlet in the Confederate states under his department. Is very happy that the Freedom Party persecutes blacks and not Jews, as the Russians did in his homeland of Poland. Despite the brutishness and barbarity of the Freedom Party and its administration of the Confederate States, Goldman remains a quiet, shy intellectual, though he's hardly less monstrous, underneath his unassuming manner. Based, in an incredible irony, on Joseph Goebbels.

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• Honest Advisor: Along with Ferd Koenig, Goldman is on the short list of people whose opinion Jake actually respects and will ask for.
• Ignored Epiphany: During the last books, when he starts to realise that what he's done to blacks isn't dissimilar from what the Russians do to Jews like him. He promptly pushes the thought away at Jake's urging.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: As the CSA propaganda man he's Joseph Goebbels.
  • Also, his fate bears a strong resemblance to Julius Streicher, who was convicted and hanged for inciting genocide, despite that he didn't actually take part in any of the killings.

• Politically Incorrect Villain: And one who gains extra points, given that he's the one spreading Jake's poisonous views throughout the CSA.
• Propaganda Machine: Controls all media in the Confederacy.

Jefferson Davis Pinkard

A steel-worker and ex-soldier turned Freedom Party official, Jeff runs a concentration camp, and is the first person to think of using gas to dispose of blacks. Based on Rudolf Höss of all people.

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• Affably Evil: Jeff is an easygoing guy who just happens to run a death camp.
• At Least I Admit It: His casual, unrepentant admission of his actions contributes to Jonathan Moss agreeing to represent him.

• Character Death: Hanged for his crimes at the end of the war.
• Domestic Abuser: Played remarkably sympathetically—he begins beating his first wife after he discovers she has cheated on him. His marriage to his second wife is far more successful, and features none of this.
• Fat Bastard: Gains a lot of weight during his forties.
• Final Solution: A major part of it. He's the one who comes up with the asphyxiating trucks and the bathhouses.
• Fire-Forged Friends: With Hipolito Rodriguez, dating back to the First Great War. Though he greatly outranks Rodriguez during the Second Great War, the Sonoran-born noncom is Jeff's only confidant. "Hip" even serves as Jeff's best man at his second marriage, over Edith's racially-based objections.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: From Nice Guy to Rudolf Höss.
• Happily Married: To his second wife, Edith.
• Ignored Epiphany: A guilt-ridden guard killing himself with car exhaust inspires Pinkard on new ways to kill prisoners rather than making him consider why that man killed himself. Even his friend Hip Rodriguez killing himself for the same reasons, while causing Jeff pain, doesn't give him any second thought.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Rudolf Höss to Jake's Adolf Hitler, with shades of Adolf Eichmann.
• Nice Guy: Before his Start of Darkness, he actually begins the series as one of the more nicer Confederate characters. When working as a steelworker during the war and prior to getting drafted, he actually developed some level of respect and comradery with Blacks who came into the fill the gaps left by the White employees who went off to the front.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Possibly only surpassed by Jake Featherston for a complete loathing of blacks.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Outside of his job Jeff remains a disturbingly pleasant guy.

• Sociopathic Soldier: Came home from WWI and the Mexican Civil War completely drained of humanity.
• Start of Darkness: Pinkard's slide from Working-Class Hero and relatively sympathetic character to the utterly evil creature he is at the end of the story is thoroughly documented from the moment he catches his first wife cheating on him with his best friend and neighbour. She tries to excuse it with a claim of "he's just been here. That's all." ("here" being inside of her) and it's all down hill from there.
• Sympathetic P.O.V.: Very, very disturbingly so.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Introduced as a sympathetic character, he becomes an architect of the Final Solution.
• The Unapologetic: During his post-war trial, he isn't just unrepentant about what he did but doesn't see anything he did as wrong and even takes pride in it by loudly saying he did what needed to be done. His last thoughts before being hanged is thinking the U.S. has no right to execute him. It never occurs to him to think of his own victims in the same light.
• Villainous Friendship: With Hip Rodriguez, despite their differences in race and religion. When Rodriguez kills himself, Jeff is completely distraught.

Don Partridge

Jake Featherston's second Vice-President following Willy Knight's attempted coup. He was specifically picked as he was regarded as a political non-entity who harbored no ambition or skill that could threaten Featherston. Following Featherston's death at Cassius Madison in the closing days of the war, he becomes the last President of the Confederacy with his only act as President being to sign the surrender documents.

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• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: For Dan Quayle, George H. W. Bush's Vice-President. Quayle, like Patridge, was seen as a political lightweight with a penchant for bad jokes. They also both have birds for last names.
  • He's also one for Admiral Karl Dönitz. Who was Hitler's successor falling his suicide and whose only significant act was to formally sign Germany's unconditional surrender.
• Our Presidents Are Different: President Buffoon. After he signs the surrender papers, he then states it's time for him to get to the business of being President. He then had to be reminded of the papers he just read and signed that ended the Confederacy as an independent nation.
• Vice President Who?: What got him the job.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: He gets arrested by soldiers after ending the war. His fate and whether he is executed like other Freedom Party leaders is unknown.

Henderson FitzBelmont

Head of the Confederate atomic bomb project.

• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: To the point that Featherston doesn't take him seriously until it's too late to really make a difference.
• He Knows Too Much: Implied to have been killed by the U.S. in "an unfortunate traffic accident" to prevent his defection to the Japanese or Russians.
• Hidden Depths: Is to a large extent responsible for the one-way mission to take out the U.S. atomic research facilties in Washington state.
• Honest Advisor: When Featherston shows outrage that the U.S. atomic bomb program is ahead of the Confederate program, FitzBelmont reminds him that the Confederates would have been ahead had Featherston funded the project when he initially proposed it. FitzBelmont becomes one of the very few people to whom Featherston admits that he made a mistake.
• Mad Scientist: Is fully aware of what the bomb can do. Doesn't entirely care, and isn't entirely motivated by patriotism.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Confides to Potter that although he's loyal to the Confederacy, he is bitterly opposed to the Freedom Party.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Meet Werner Heisenberg.
• Odd Friendship: With Clarence Potter, the only senior member of Featherston's administration who can tolerate the guy long enough to coordinate with him.

Armed Forces

Notable Military Commanders

Nathan Bedford Forrest III

The great-grandson of Nathan Bedford Forrest and rose rose to become the Chief of the Confederate States General Staff before the Second Great War. In spite of Featherston's campaign to purge the Confederate Army of the unqualified aristocracy, Jake Featherston valued Forrest highly for his willingness to speak his mind, and for his visions of how to use barrels unlike many of his aristocratic contemporaries who were descendants of the C.S. Founders. When the war begins going south for the Confederacy, however his increasing doubts on Featherston's sanity grow into an attempt at a coup to save the Confederacy from total destruction.

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• Honest Advisor: He's one of the few people who will genuinely speak frankly to Jake, though Jake being Jake, it doesn't mean his advice will be taken.
• Hypocrite: When he starts voicing second thoughts on Featherston's sanity following the crushing defeat at Pittsburgh, Potter points out to him he didn't voice these thoughts when the Confederacy was winning. It's not like Featherston was any saner beforehand.
• Military Coup: Following the fall of Atlanta, he attempts a coup to oust Featherston but it fails miserably as Featherston's Freedom Party Guard are able to overwhelm the few soldiers Forrest was able to convince. He's later put to torture and executed on Featherston's direct orders.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: His attempted coup makes him one for the German officers who partook in the 20th Plot. Like them, Forrest was supportive of Featherston when they were winning the war but started getting second thoughts that turned into an attempted coup when the war started going dangerously south for the Confederacy.
• Number Two: As the Chief of the General Staff, he's Jake's main military advisor.
• Public Domain Character: He was a real American General in World War II.

George S. Patton

A high-ranking Confederate Brigadier General in the Army of Kentucky, and a veteran of The Great War, Patton is one of Jake Featherston's favourite bagmen, and spearheads the assault on Ohio, later commanding at the battles of Pittsburgh and Birmingham. An aggressive devotee of barrel warfare, Patton lives to fight and little else.

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• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Patton tries to use the offensive as the be-all-end-all of warfare. He's less idiotic about it than Custer or MacArthur though.

• The Dragon: As Jake's favourite general, Patton is the closest thing that the Confederate President has to a traditional Dragon.

• Historical Domain Character: Zig-zagged. George S. Patton was a prominent American general during WWII. However, the alternate history setting makes it unlikely his parents would have met, as his father was a Virginian and his mother from California. This Patton is most likely a different person with the same name, born to the same father and a different mother.
• Lack of Empathy: To the point of assaulting a man who was suffering from shell shock. Jake of all people calls him out on it.

Clarence Potter

A career intelligence officer who speaks with a perfect New England accent, Potter is a major with Army of Northern Virginia intelligence when we first meet him. By the time of Settling Accounts he is a Brigadier-General and one of the heads of Confederate Intelligence/Counterintelligence. Based on Wilhelm Canaris.

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• Anti-Villain: Type I
• Badass Bookworm: Described as a skinny man in round hornrim glasses.

• The Cynic: Doesn't really believe in anything, except for the Confederate States.
  • Becomes even more cynical by the end, thinking that Featherston led them to ruin and he followed out of loyalty to his country. When a Confederate veteran who is talking about taking revenge on the USA again for their defeat starts chatting with him, Potter sharply tells the man to shut up, the war's over and they lost, and it's time to move on.
• Determinator: Very nearly as much as Jake Featherston, but not nearly so rabid. Doesn't give up on the war until Featherston is dead. And, long after the CSA has lost any real hope for victory, nevertheless risks everything and most of his best Intelligence people to sneak a nuke into Philadelphia, the de facto US capital, in a final, futile gesture. And then he escapes back to the CSA.
• Dressing as the Enemy: Thanks to his accent, this is his forte. He's also immensely skilled at identifying those Confederate citizens whose accents are good enough to do the same, a vital skill for the head of Confederate military intelligence to have.
• Enigmatic Minion: Regarded as such in-series. His abilities are never questioned, but his Yankee accent, unclear reasons for supporting Jake, and cynical attitude towards everything earn him the suspicion of all major CSA characters, including the President.
  • And rightly so, he got his job when he kills an would-be assassin trying to kill Featherston. Which he only did because the assassin was endangering everyone around Featherston. And he only had a gun at that moment because he had intended to kill Featherston himself.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Though he's less evil than he is utterly ruthless and completely without mercy towards his enemies. In many ways, Potter exemplifies the old Marine saying: "No better friend, no worse enemy."
• From Nobody to Nightmare: A typical (if very competent) intelligence officer to begin with, Featherston's recognition of his abilities turns him into a perpetual thorn in the Union's side, one that culminates in the nuclear destruction of downtown Philadelphia.
• Manipulative Bastard: What got him the job as head of Confederate Intelligence and how one, in general, survives being a part of Featherston's inner circle.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Loyal to the CSA and the CSA alone.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: As the head of Confederate Intelligence, Clarence Potter is based on Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr. However, Canaris did not personally know Adolf Hitler in the First World War, nor did Canaris survive the war.
  • Potter's field operations also bear resemblance to that of Otto Skorzeny, especially his role in organising and training Confederate units, consisting of soldiers who spoke with "Yankee" accents and had experience with US slang (and US Army uniforms), which operated behind enemy lines, causing chaos and capturing key targets, which Skorzeny did the same during Operation Greif at the Battle of the Bulge. Also, Potter's trial has similarities to Skorzeny going on trial for violating the rules of war by wearing enemy uniforms, only to be acquitted by an officer admitting that their side had done the same thing.
• Nuke 'em: Nukes part of Philadelphia with a plutonium bomb in the back of a truck. Since the bomb went off at ground level, it was far less destructive than it might have been. Still, this makes the CSA the first to use nuclear weapons.
• Retired Badass: Retires to write his memoirs, under careful US surveillance.
• Retired Monster: As of the end of In At The Death. He's not sorry, but he's not doing that again either. And, in many ways, he has nothing to apologize for; he simply did his very best against his country's mortal enemy, an enemy that enjoyed virtually every important military advantage over his country (population, size, industrial capacity, skilled labor, economy, not to mention the resources used to commit genocide that could have been used to defeat the USA). The difference between his being a regular soldier and a monster is his position (head of intelligence), the fact that he's fully aware of the "population reductions" and that he was just so frighteningly good. See My Country, Right or Wrong.
• The Spymaster: During the Freedom Party years.
• Sympathetic P.O.V.: As far as one goes for a White Confederate.
• The Unapologetic: Does not hint at all he feels any remorse for destroying half of Philadelphia with a nuke. He even plans on titling his memoirs "How I Blew Up Philadelphia''.
• Villainous Friendship: He and Jake are a Type IV. Neither one necessarily likes the other, but they respect one another's talents, and are the closest thing to a genuine friend that the other one has.

Army

Tom Colleton

Younger brother of Anne and Jacob's older brother, he went off to war in 1914 alongside his brother, with the rank of Captain. Came back a Lieutenant Colonel and far more mature than he had been (Anne had frequently remarked that he was the most frivolous of her brothers). Assisted Anne in destroying the last remnants of the black marxist uprising that had claimed his brother's (admittedly shattered) life and his ancestral home, killing its leader, Cassius (who had been the Big Bad in Anne's POV). In the interwar period, while his sister became closely involved with the Freedom Party (she bankrolled the party's early rise), he remained distant, disdaining the fanaticism and brutality of the Party. Met Featherston once, and was not impressed (one of the only characters not to be). Recalled to service for the Second World War as a Lieutenant Colonel, he served in the Confederate spearhead that conquered Ohio and cut the United States in half, eventually participating in the fateful Battle of Pittsburgh, where he died. Based, along with Clarence Potter, on German officers who hated Hitler but served Germany faithfully.

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• Aristocrats Are Evil: Averted. In sharp contrast to his sister and his brother, he's one of the nicest, most unprepossessing characters in the series, and, after Reggie Bartlett died so randomly, he's one of the last truly decent Confederate characters. And despite having a wealthy planter lineage going back to before the American Revolution (Marshlands is nearly the oldest plantation in the CSA), he marries a grocer's daughter, Bertha, with whom his extremely Happily Married and has two sons.
• Colonel Badass: definitely. Led from the front on the Roanoke front in World War I, often being close enough to the enemy to use his sidearm. Did so again in World War II, with his most common line of dialogue, at least where his soldiers were concerned, being "Follow me." In the Pittsburgh pocket, he willingly endured all the hardships his men faced. Not to mention his last thought in Pittsburgh, just before a US soldier shoots him: "One last shot," as he reaches for his rifle.
• Character Death: He's one of the last Confederate soldiers killed in the Battle of Pittsburgh
• A Father to His Men: Almost certainly. Reggie Bartlett, who served in Tom's company on the Roanoke front, seems to think of him as such.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Unlike his sister he doesn't think much of the Freedom Party or Featherston himself (though he admitted he was charismatic) but was willing to serve his country again when the Second Great War broke out.

Jerry Dover

General manager of the Huntsman's Lodge, a four-star restaurant in Augusta, Georgia, who employs Scipio (under the assumed name Xerxes) as a waiter. Later drafted as a supply officer by the Confederate army. Notable for having shielded Scipio and his family from Freedom Party "Population Reductions".

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• Androcles' Lion: Played straight; Cassius Madison remembers the risks Jerry took on behalf of him and his family when Jerry is later interned in a US POW camp, and manages to secure Jerry's freedom.
• Badass Bureaucrat: After being recalled to service, becomes the most efficient officer in the Confederate Quartermaster Corps and is specifically targeted by Irving Morrell for assassination because he significantly boosts the overall efficiency of the army.
• Benevolent Boss: Played with; he's not a pleasant guy to work for by any means, but Jerry nonetheless rewards good, hard workers, and is willing to stick his neck out for Scipio and other black employees who are in danger of being rounded up by the Freedom Party.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Jerry is noteworthy for these, and is probably the most foul-mouthed character in the series.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Although he doesn't like Featherston or the Freedom Party at all, does not want to oppose him out of loyalty to the Confederacy as a whole.

• Just Ignore It: Tries not to think about the Population Reduction and its implications too much and displays minor anger towards the Yankee occupiers for not letting the confederate populace forget it.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Both with regard to his black restaurant employees (and their families) vis a vis the Freedom Party, and later with Confederate army bureaucracy.
• The Scrounger: For an entire Confederate theater of battle! It's noted in-universe that restaurateurs are especially talented as supply officers (Truth in Television; see the Real Life entry under this trope).

• Weirdness Coupon: Jerry's army superiors put up with his bad attitude and insubordination because he's undisputedly the best at what he does.

Hiram Lincoln

A Confederate Calvary officer at the onset of the Great War stationed out in Sequoyah ^note Oklahoma

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• The Cavalry: An officer in the Confederate Calvary. He gets a rude awakening however in learning how outdated his profession is becoming with the onset of modern weaponry in the Great War
• Dropped a Bridge on Him Dies in the same book he's introduced in, The American Front, when ordered by Creek leaders to launch to a doomed offensive against an entrenched U.S. position
• Embarrassing Last Name: Not that it's particularly embarrassing but he's very self-conscious about being a Confederate sharing the same last name as Abraham Lincoln, still the most loathed man in all of the Confederacy decades after his death.

Hipolito Rodriguez

A Mexican man from the Confederate state of Sonora, he serves in World War I, though his first engagement is putting down the various black uprisings, during which he meets his lifelong friend, Jefferson Pinkard, and acquires a deep and abiding hatred for blacks (though remaining extremely sympathetic). After the war ended, he became an extremely prosperous farmer, compared to most of his neighbors (eventually owning a radio, refrigerator, and electric lighting). Also became a strong supporter of the Freedom Party, mainly because they were as virulently racist against blacks as he was. Throughout the series, Rodriguez repeatedly expresses that he is grateful for the subjugation of blacks, as it puts himself, and other Mexicans, in a slightly higher social stratum, and deflects hatred that might otherwise fall on his people. Along with Mexican Freedom Party members and white organizers, Rodriguez participates in paramilitary operations that break the political and economic power of the Mexican "patrones." Unfortunately, Rodriguez nearly electrocutes himself during the interwar period, and is severely weakened. When World War II starts, he is too weak to serve in the regular army, and so becomes a camp guard, eventually ending up at Pinkard's Camp Determination (read: Auschwitz). Initially does well, resuming his friendship with Pinkard and becoming one of his most trusted subordinates, despite Rodriguez's low rank. Eventually stops being able to deny the reality of what he and the camp are doing (exterminating blacks) and kills himself.

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• Affably Evil: Hip is a genuinely pleasant man, who just happens to work as a guard at a death camp.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Hip's exit plays up his humanity and his realization he can no longer live with himself.
• Death Equals Redemption: Commits suicide after realizing he is the bad guy.
• Driven to Suicide: Following the realization that he is killing real people.
• Evil Cripple: Can barely walk after being electrocuted.
• Final Solution: Plays a minor role in it as a guard at Camp Determination.
• Fire-Forged Friends: With Jeff Pinkard, as a result of their service in the Great War. Despite their differences in race, religion, and rank, in the Second Great War "Hip" is Jeff's only real confidant.
• Happily Married: To Magdalena.
• Heel Realization: At the hands, or rather the words, of Bathsheba.
• Pet the Dog: When he agrees to take a message from Bathsheba to Scipio.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Believes the mallates all deserve to die for rising up against the CSA.
• State Sec: As one of the Freedom Party Guards.
• Sympathetic P.O.V.: Despite everything he eventually becomes involved in, he remains likable.
• Villainous Friendship: With Jeff.

Navy

Roger Kimball

Confederate submarine captain in the Great War, torpedoes the destroyer USS Ericsson after the war has ended, killing all hands aboard—including Seaman George Enos—and making Kimball a war criminal. Romantically involved with Anne Colleton, and an early convert to the Freedom Party. Killed by Sylvia Enos, widow of George, for which she is treated as a hero and is not prosecuted, either in the CSA or USA.

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• Asshole Victim: Nobody, in either the USA or CSA, cares when Sylvia shoots him.
• Bondage Is Bad: His sexual encounters with Anne Colleton can get downright violent.
• The Captain: Commanding officer of the CSS Bonefish.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Downplayed. While he'd never admit to being evil, Kimball is incredibly proud of being a war criminal, gloating that it feels pretty good to be one.
• Character Death: Shot by Sylvia Enos near the conclusion of Blood & Iron.
• Commanding Coolness: Ranked as Commander.
• Hate Sink: Kimball makes a lovely target for all the loathing that the readers have towards the rest of the CSA. He's killed off just as Jake is about to seize power and make this role irrelevant.
• Karmic Death: Slain by the two women he's hurt the most.
• Jerkass: A smug, condescending rake who is incredibly pleased with his lack of anything approaching a conscience.
• Lack of Empathy: Kimball displays no concern for anyone other than himself.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Courtesy of Sylvia Enos, with Anne Colleton playing a supporting role as payback for Roger attempting to rape her.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Racist and misgoynistic.
• Rags to Riches: From backwoods Arkansas. Aims to rise in the world.
• The Resenter: Of everyone who manages to stay in the spotlight in the Freedom Party, and to a lesser degree, anybody richer and better off than he is.
• Self-Made Man: How he sees himself.
• Smug Snake: Kimball always projects an air of being disgustingly self-satisfied and impressed with his own intelligence.
• The Sociopath: Kimball is proudly immoral, has no respect for anybody, treats other men and women as disposal objects, and seems incapable of any emotions beyond self-satisfaction and anger.
• Sociopathic Soldier: Kimball is easily the most vile man to serve in either navy. He demonstrates no regard for The Laws and Customs of War, murders Enos and his crew after the war is over, and tries to rape his ex-girlfriend, Anne Colleton when she leaves the Freedom Party.
• Unsympathetic P.O.V.: Despite being a viewpoint character, he's an absolutely loathsome human being throughout. One suspects Turtledove hated him, for some reason.
• Would Hit a Girl: Kimball beats a woman when breaking up a Radical Liberal rally, repeatedly contemplates raping Anne (before finally trying it when she leaves him), and is planning to track her down and murder her when Sylvia Enos shoots him.

Civilians

Reggie Bartlett

A drugstore clerk who is intensely loyal to the Confederacy and becomes a war hero during the First Great War but actively opposes Featherston's Freedom Party when their excesses become obvious.

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• Dropped a Bridge on Him: After surviving the entire Great War, he gets killed by some Freedom Party thugs in The Center Cannot Hold.
• The Everyman: Portrayed as an average white Confederate citizen.
• Great Escape: Pulls one off from a US POW camp in the First Great War; is captured a second time later in the war but is too badly wounded to make another attempt.
• Heel Realization: Although never a Heel per se, Bartlett comes to the epiphany that blacks and whites aren't so different when he's interned with a group of black CSA soldiers after being captured a second time.
• Jumped at the Call: Does not wait to be drafted when the CSA enters the First Great War but rushes to the first recruiting station he can find, abandoning his regular job in the process. Later becomes politically active with the Radical Liberals, one of the few political parties with enough strength to oppose the Freedom Party.
• Mirror Character: To Jake Featherston. Both start out the series as patriotic Confederate soldiers eager to fight in another war against the United States as well sharing the bigoted viewpoints of white Confederates. They both also went into politics following their return from the war. Unlike Featherston however, Bartlett's experience in the war challenged some of his pre-existing beliefs about blacks and in the post-war Confederacy, became more politically active in wanting to see the Confederacy reformed for the better. He was an early opponent of Featherston's Freedom Party for instance, voting for the Radical Liberals (the closest party the Confederacy had to a non-conservative party).
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Although he does attempt to help reform the system (or at least keep it from getting any worse) by becoming politically active.
• Noble Bigot: Despite being infected with the racial attitudes of his time and his country, Reggie is actually a pretty decent guy. Even his racial attitudes are somewhat moderated when he gets to know black CSA soldier Rehoboam.
• Only Sane Man: In an insane nation.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: His attitude toward the Freedom Party.
• Sympathetic P.O.V.: Perhaps the most sympathetic by far of the Confederate characters.

Anne Colleton

The owner of the Marshlands plantation, Anne is an attractive woman and Southern aristocrat who is used to getting everything she wants, consequences be damned.

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• All Girls Want Bad Boys: She's drawn to Roger Kimball because he comes across as something of a rake, stays attracted because of his war crimes, and shares his burning desire for revenge on the USA.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Aside from a few Pet the Dog moments, she shows can be as nasty an individual as Jake Featherston. She was a fierce believer in the racial social order of the Confederacy and took the Red Rebellion very personally on account of Cassius killing her brother. She and Kimball were also early supporters of Featherston over their shared hatred of the U.S.
• Dark Action Girl: Takes up bushwhacking during the black Marxist uprising when it's clear that the police and Confederate reserve forces (consisting mostly of the elderly and otherwise unfit for front-line service) aren't up to the task of protecting her and her plantation.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Southern Belle character type.
• Dropped A Bridge On Her: Not that anybody cared.
• I Was Quite a Looker: Downplayed example. She's introduced in the series around her early 30s and is described as quite beautiful but her looks begin to fade with age by the time she's in her late-50s by the start of the Second Great War.
• Karma Houdini: Right up until she's killed in a bombing in the opening days of the Second Great War.
• Moral Myopia: Roger Kimball trying to rape her? Unforgivable. Her forcing black women to sleep with her brother? Completely excusable.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Not for any one individual in particular but as a member of the aristocratic plantation class who ends up supporting Jake Featherston, she can be seen as stand-in for the Prussian aristocracy who supported Hitler and the Nazis believing they were a lesser evil compared to the Socialists and would make Germany strong again.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Ran essentially a slave plantation prior to the Red Rebellion and was an early supporter of the Freedom Party.
• Really Gets Around: Anne uses her sexuality to get everything she wants, and both easily seduces men and is easily seduced herself.
• Rich Bitch: Although she does get a few Pet the Dog moments.
• Silk Hiding Steel: She takes the societal expectations of being a southern lady seriously but has just as much as a hard streak in her as characters like Jake Featherston or Jeff Pinkard do.
• Sympathetic P.O.V.: Well, sort of. We see everything from Anne's point of view, but she's such a thoroughly unlikeable bitch that it's hard to have any actual sympathy for her.
• The Vamp: Constantly uses her sexuality to get what she wants.

Jacob Colleton

Anne's younger brother, who was crippled in a gas attack.

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• The Alcoholic: Addicted to whiskey and pain killers.
• Blood Knight: A terrifyingly creepy one. Jacob seems to have a need to kill things in order to feel alive.
• Character Death: Killed by Cassius.
• Cold Sniper: Still a horrifyingly good shot despite his injuries.

• Evil Cripple: His injures, coupled with the shell shock, warp him into a blood knight who needs killing in order get through the day.
• Handicapped Badass: Jacob may be trapped in a wheelchair and barely able to breathe, but he still kills half the force that Cassius sends to take him out.
• Lust: Really seems to enjoy screwing the black serving girls, whether they want to take part or not.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: He's paralyzed from poison gas in the Great War, which upon his return to the Marshlands he spends most of his time drinking and abusing the servants.
• Sniper Duel: Has a brief one with Cassius.
• Sociopathic Soldier: Type II & IV combination, with the caveat that he cracked after his tour of duty was over.
• Vader Breath: He got discharged from frontline duty after suffering an attack from poison gas, which has left him with some heavy breathing.

Lulu Maddox

Jake's secretary from the interwar years onward.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: Played with. Jake finds her extremely unattractive, and in his own words, would "sooner hump me a sheep." At the same time, he's always unfailingly nice to her and definitely values her friendship and hard work.
• Action Girl: To Jake's surprise, she proves very handy with a Tredegar.
• Horrible Judge of Character: In a sense, given her unfailing devotion towards Jake, and conviction that he deserves her love and loyalty.
• Mercy Kill: Begs Jake to perform one on her after the plane crash that cripples her.
• Morality Pet: To Jake. She's one of the only people who he acts, and treats, genuinely nice to.