Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War
The story takes place in 1863 when Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia are victorious at the Battle of Gettysburg instead of the United States. (Instead of attacking the Union line on July 2, 1863, Lee conducts a broad turning movement and forces the Army of the Potomac to attack him in a favorable position.) Gettysburg becomes something of a footnote in the main battle, which takes place at Union Mills in Maryland. The defeat at Union Mills is a grave setback to the United States, but it by no means spells the end of the war or determines its outcome, and the United States still has a lot of fight in it.
Adolfo Fernández Cavada
He was wounded during the Battle of Gettysburg when his horse was shot and killed from under him. Fernández Cavada kept a diary during the war which is considered to be one of the most vivid and articulate accounts of the Battle of Gettysburg. His eyewitness account of the famous conflict provided an expressively descriptive account of the battle. During one day of the July battle, he recorded how "The air was soon full of flying shot, shell and canister--and a groan here and there attested their affect. ...the roar of musketry and the crashing, pounding noise of guns and bursting shells was deafening..."
After the war, Fernández Cavada was appointed as United States consul at Cienfuegos, Cuba. Fernández Cavada resigned his position upon the Cuban insurrection against Spanish rule, which became known as Cuba’s Ten Years' War (1868–1878). Together with his brother Federico, who had also resigned from his appointment as consul to Trinidad, he joined the Cuban insurgents in their quest for Cuba's independence.