The war has lasted three years. Lincoln is out of patience. And the only man who can win it just arrived in Philadelphia with a single carpetbag.
Hammer of the Union is the shattering penultimate volume of An Alternate History of the American Civil War - the story of how Ulysses S. Grant was handed command of all Union armies, devised the first truly coordinated offensive of the war, and launched the campaign that would finally determine whether the United States would survive.
His plan is brutal in its simplicity: attack everywhere at once. Give Lee no room to maneuver, no way to shift forces, no winter to rest. Drive for Washington, reclaim the capital, and end the rebellion by attrition if not by brilliance. What follows is the most grueling twelve months in American military history - the Overland Campaign, the siege of Petersburg, the fall of Richmond - all reimagined in a timeline where the stakes are even higher because the East has been lost for three years and no one is sure the country can survive another defeat.
And through it all, Lincoln waits.
Hammer of the Union ends at Appomattox - but the story doesn't end there.
