Everything about Jake Featherston totally explained
Jacob "Jake" Featherston (1886-1944) is a
fictional character appearing in
Harry Turtledove's Timeline-191 series, in which the
Confederate States of America defeat the
United States thanks to the failure of
George B. McClellan to locate
General Lee's Special Order 191, leading to
British and
French intervention in the
American Civil War. Featherston appears as a leading antagonist in the series, from to, rising from his rank as an artillery sergeant in the
Army of Northern Virginia to the office of
President of the Confederate States of America.
Appearance
Featherston serves in the series as analog to
Adolf Hitler. He is physically very thin, raw-boned, and is often described as lanky, awkward and bony. He remained slender into his fifties, retaining his "dangerous" eyes, close-cropped brown hair, and a harsh, raspy voice. He was extremely petty and vindictive, taking the slightest mistake or remark as a personal affront and then vowing to take vengeance on the perpetrator, be it a single man, an entire race, or a whole country. Featherston also had the uncanny ability to vent his anger and frustration in a manner that captured the attention of his audience and holds it spellbound, enticing them to join him in his madness. While he isn't an educated man, he's frequently described to have impressive intelligence and shrewdness.
Ultimately, Featherston was a victim of his own
megalomania, as he forced himself to attempt to accomplish increasingly dangerous goals in order to keep up the impression that he was "great." He expressed several times his opinion that without him the Confederate States of America would amount to nothing, and that without him race relations would rot the core of the Confederate nation. He seemed to suffer from
Narcissistic Personality Disorder, where he perceived himself to be the center of his universe. Since he held the highest position of power ever achieved in
North America, and worked hard to get to the top, that only worked to stoke the fire within him.
Fictional Character Biography
Born the son of an (ex-)slave overseer sometime in the 1880s somewhere near
Richmond, Virginia, Featherston grew up in a poor household and joined the CS Army at a young age.
By 1914 he was a sergeant in the First Richmond Howitzers, under Captain
Jeb Stuart III. As part of the
Army of Northern Virginia, Featherston fought on the
Susquehanna River and then fell back towards
Maryland. During this time he reported his suspicions to an intelligence officer about Pompey, Captain Stuart's body servant, being a
Marxist rebel. The accusation would have more influence on Featherston's life than he could ever have imagined at the time. Not only did Pompey, protected from investigation by his prominent master, turn out to be a real Red when the Negro uprisings broke out, but the intelligence officer in question was one
Clarence Potter, whose destiny would be forevermore inextricable with Featherston's.
Interestingly, considering his future career, at this stage Featherston is far from being a rabid
racist. He had a rather ambiguous relationship with the blacks who do menial work in his unit, not lacking in grudging respect - especially after one battle when the blacks help him operate the unit's artillery after a U.S. barrage killed the white gunners. On the eve of the uprising, the leader of the blacks, Perseus, actually comes to say goodbye to Featherston and warn him to "be careful for a while". (In
Mein Kampf there's a passage where
Hitler recalls a time when he was well-disposed towards Jews and considered the prejudice against them unjustified.)
As the uprisings petered out in early 1916, Jeb Stuart III, who had destroyed his career by protecting Pompey, intentionally allowed himself a "heroic death" in combat. His father was
General Jeb Stuart, Jr., a power in the Confederate General Staff at
Richmond, who ensured that Featherston never made officer's rank despite his fitness for the post. Featherston - as noted, previously no more racist than other ordinary white Confederates - now burned with intense fury at blacks and aristocratic officers alike. His anger intensifies as the war starts to go badly for the Confederates. By the end of the war, Featherston had begun pouring out his hate on Gray Eagle
scratchpads (what would later become his autobiographical "
Over Open Sights"). When the ceasefire went into effect he vowed to Clarence Potter that he'd have vengeance on the blacks and the aristocrats running the War Department.
During the aftermath of the war, Featherston drifted for a short while, before joining the newly created
Freedom Party. Swiftly establishing himself as head propagandist, it wasn't long before Featherston, aided by Party member Ferdinand Koenig, became its leader. With his raw energy and humble origins, Featherston had little trouble whipping up support from much of the Confederate populace, and it seemed by the early 1920s that he'd surely be leading the country. But with the assassination of President Wade Hampton V in 1923 by a Party stalwart, the Freedom Party suffered a sudden and near-total collapse as a political force.
The following years were spent by Featherston repairing what damage he could, and waiting for his next opportunity. The vital discovery of the power of the
wireless radio and his subsequent broadcasts did much to aid the Party's recovery. The damage caused by the
Mississippi floods and the
Business Collapse of the early 1930s ensured that the Freedom Party swept the elections in 1933.
Once he was legally elected President of the Confederacy, Featherston slowly and quietly twisted the
Confederate Constitution into giving him more power. He maneuvered the
Supreme Court into striking itself out of existence, provoked the black minority toward rebellion with race riots, created farm machinery to root them out of their livelihoods so he could incarcerate them in camps, and repealed the single term limit so he could run multiple times. In the meantime, the black rebellions gave the CSA a plausible excuse to reinstitute conscription and arm its airplanes. He manipulated USA Socialist president
Al Smith to allow the states of
Kentucky,
Houston (West Texas), and
Sequoyah (all former CSA states) to hold plebiscites to determine their futures. Kentucky and Houston voted to rejoin the Confederacy, while Sequoyah, which had been saturated with settlers from other parts of the north, remained a part of the USA.
By 1941, Featherston was ready for war. With the excuse of redeeming lost territory, he initiated the
Second Great War in North America with a surprise air raid on
Philadelphia and the immense success of
Operation Blackbeard, which cut the USA in half through central
Ohio. His megalomaniacal mindset would prove to be his undoing, however, and his expectations of quick victory were quickly dashed when
Al Smith rejected his 'generous' peace offer. His downfall began to unravel starting with his disastrous attempt to take
Pittsburgh in the fall of 1942 and the subsequent loss of an entire army trapped in a pocket there, because Featherston defiantly refused to withdraw even when his generals realized it was the sensible thing to do.
Though he suffered more defeats in 1943, losing occupied Ohio, as well as
Kentucky,
Tennessee, and
Camp Determination, Featherston refused to admit defeat. When U.S. President
Charles La Follette demanded the Confederates surrender unconditionally, Featherston went on the wireless to refuse the demand, and quickly responded by firing two rockets into Philadelphia from Virginia to prove that he wasn't ready to end the war.
Despite his displays of defiance, Featherston continued to lose more ground into 1944, losing Georgia and large parts of South Carolina and Alabama. His confidence only began to break after a coup attempt by
Nathan Bedford Forrest III shook his confidence in his men. Even then, he believed that he'd be able to get his way through the use of superbombs, a technology he'd poured everything he could into upon realizing the war wouldn't be short. Shortly after
Germany used the first
superbomb in warfare, the only Confederate superbomb was set off in Philadelphia, by General Potter.
As Richmond was falling to U.S. forces under
Daniel MacArthur, Featherston fled to the Hampton Roads area of Virginia to give a speech to what remained of the Confederate States. After leaving the radio station, he calmly watched
Newport News explode as a U.S. superbomb attempting to assassinate him went off. Featherston was annoyed at the display of US power, but took it in stride, considering it was he who set off the first North American superbomb, that Newport News wasn't nearly as important a target as Philadelphia, and most importantly (if only to himself and the Confederacy), he was still alive.
Well into 1944, with the Confederate cause all but lost, Featherston attempted to flee the more populous northern areas with many core Freedom Party and CSA officials, including General Potter. He wanted to lead them into the woods so that they could begin guerrilla action against the U.S., making occupation too hazardous for the United States forces to attempt. Ultimately, his plan was defeated by a guerrilla fighter named Cassius (son of Scipio/Xerxes), who found the bedraggled party and killed Featherston. Upon his death, his vice president,
Donald Partridge, quickly moved to end the war, and the Confederate States' existence, by surrendering to U.S. forces.
Further Information
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