Rebel Train

Name: Rebel Train
Rating: 4.33 (654 reviews)

by David Healey Book 2 in the Civil War series.

First published 2005

Amazon

4.3(654)

In November 1863, Confederate cavalrymen devise a plan to seize the train carrying Abraham Lincoln to Gettysburg, where the president intends to dedicate the new national cemetery. Capturing or killing Lincoln could produce a political crisis at the moment the Union is trying to define the meaning of the war.

The raid becomes a high-speed pursuit involving locomotives, cavalry and military telegraph lines. The Confederate force must keep control of the train while Union soldiers attempt to recover the president before it crosses into hostile territory. The chase places Lincoln’s life and the Gettysburg Address within a fictional struggle over who controls the railway.

Railways give the conspiracy its plausibility because the president’s route, speed and stopping places can be predicted. The same technology also gives Union pursuers a means to respond through telegraph messages and redirected trains. The story turns modern transport into both vulnerability and defence, showing how the Civil War increasingly depends on control of communications infrastructure as well as armies.