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.
1913 Gettysburg reunion
The 1913 Gettysburg reunion was a Gettysburg Battlefield encampment of American Civil War veterans for the Battle of Gettysburg's 50th anniversary. The June 29–July 4 gathering of 53,407 veterans (~8,750 Confederate) was the largest ever Civil War veteran reunion, and ""never before in the world's history "[had]" so great a number of men so advanced in years been assembled under field conditions"" (Chief Surgeon). All honorably discharged veterans in the Grand Army of the Republic and the United Confederate Veterans were invited, and veterans from 46 of the 48 states attended (cf. Nevada and Wyoming). Despite concerns "that there might be unpleasant differences, at least, between the blue and gray" (as after England's War of the Roses and the French Revolution), the peaceful reunion was repeatedly marked by events of Union–Confederate camaraderie. President Woodrow Wilson's July 4 reunion address summarized the spirit: ""We have found one another again as brothers and comrades in arms, enemies no longer, generous friends rather, our battles long past, the quarrel forgotten—except that we shall not forget the splendid valor.""