We Were All Men of Honor

About the Book

Alternative history, but based on no gimmicks, simply

different decisions in Richmond which lead to sudden victory

for the Confederacy in the Civil War.  Two principal

characters, the real Judah Benjamin and fictional John

Goodman.  Goodman, railroad engineer, Mexican War lieutenant,

and now commodities broker in New York, foresees a war of

Northern aggression, which he refuses to supply.  He

volunteers into the Quartermaster Department in Richmond, and

serves as procurement officer and incidental intelligence

analyst.  On inspection trips out of Richmond he has

misadventures and near-captures, accumulates recognition for

meritorious services, and receives the friendship of

Benjamin.  In Richmond, he is wooed and won by the daughter

of a wealthy horse farm operator.  At the end, he helps

capture Washington and create the United Confederate States

of America.  Judah Benjamin's character is the key to the

story, in Goodman's rise and in winning the war.

About the Author

Gilbert S. Bahn is a retired engineer and current free-lance historical researcher with a storyteller’s imagination. Characters form, incidents occur, lifelines develop, and then a story gets committed to paper. His first novel was begun over forty years ago and went on the shelf while he pursued his career in research and development, turning out over 30 technical papers, four books, and an international technical journal which he founded and edited for five years. During that period, as a Boy Scout leader, he also conceived Stories from a Hundred Campfires, a work still in progress. Upon retirement he conducted an exhaustive study of conservative Democratic Senators targeted by FDR for defeat in the 1938 primary elections. Recently he has concentrated on historical demography. Writing fiction is his form of relaxation.