Rewriting History Local Author’s Book Looks At America After Confederate Victory By Jeff Eason The path of history is a series of events any one of which could have turned out differently. Any alteration of a single event would have incredible consequences for the future. In short, history would have taken a different path. That’s the premise that intrigued Banner Elk novelist Dr. Edward Aronoff when he began writing an alternate take on the Civil War. In Aronoff’s new novel, Betrayal At Gettysburg, he asks what would have happened if the decisive battle of the Civil War had gone the Confederate’s way. If winning the Battle of Gettysburg paved the way for the South to win the war, what direction would the country have taken? “The first two-thirds of the book is accurately based on history and the last third is fiction based on what would have happened if the South had won at Gettysburg,” said Aronoff. Aronoff, a retired physician and member of the High Country Writers Association, uses his novel to both paint intimate portraits of some of the important figures of the Civil War and to rewrite American history. After the South emerges victorious, the Reconstruction era takes on a whole new look with slavery remaining in the South and the Country split in two. Aronoff will meet with the public and sign copies of Betrayal At Gettysburg at Waldenbooks in the Boone Mall Friday, December 20th through Tuesday, December 24th. Aronoff will be at the Mall each day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. In addition to meeting with the public, Aronoff will have a collection of Civil War memorabilia on display at the Boone Mall. The collection includes weaponry (sword, rifle and pistol), eyeglasses, uniform and other items. Aronoff stated that he has always been interested by the history of the Civil War and has visited various battle sites, gone to Civil War re-enactments, and studied correspondence of the war’s prominent personalities. “While studying the 20th Maine’s tactics one summer day I began playing their famous leader, Colonel Chaimberlain’s game of what if,” stated Aronoff. “What if, I mused, all of Lee’s generals followed his orders in a timely fashion at Gettysburg? What if Jackson were still with him, would the Army of Northern Virginia have pierced the Union line at the Stone Wall? If Ewell and Longstreet would have attacked when ordered, could they have driven Meade off the heights? Thus this story was born.” In one dramatic departure from history, Aronoff’s story details how the South’s victory leads to the Union being blamed for the atrocities at Andersonville—the infamous prisoner of war camp in Georgia. In reality, Captain Henry Wirz was tried, convicted and executed for war crimes at the camp. In Betrayal At Gettysburg, Union leaders are put on trial for refusing to exchange prisoners of war during the latter stages of the war. Aronoff’s story also sheds light on the plight of blacks in the South after the Confederate victory. The Underground Railroad continues to help move blacks surreptitiously to the free North, much to the South’s consternation. Betrayal At Gettysburg follows the conflict, peace and eventual reconciliation between the Union and the Confederacy from the Civil War until World War One. Since its release the book has received favorable reviews from its toughest critics—Civil War enthusiasts—including a glowing tribute from The Civil War Times. The book is Aranoff’s fourth and the first one published by Parkway Publishing in Boone. His other Civil War novel, Three Came Home, is about the adventures of three Appomattox survivors and their experiences trying to get home. “General Sherman used to put Confederate women on a train and send them up north,” said Aronoff. “Mary Chesnut was a Civil War diarist. I use her as one of the people sent up north by Sherman. There’s also Sam Watkins, a college graduate who fought as a Confederate private and a general from Rutherfordton, North Carolina. A lot of people don’t know it but North Carolina had more citizens killed in the Civil War than any other state.” Like Robert Harris’s Fatherland, Aronoff’s novel is an insightful glimpse into a history that was and a future that might have been. Betrayal at Gettysburg is also available at The Book Warehouse and other area bookstores.