Chapter 2: Savannah’s Rotten Heart

On the retreat back to Savannah, I fingered the secret pouches—the ‘red folders’—left by the Secretary and tried to make sense of it all.\n\nMy horse slogged through mud that sucked at its hooves, dusk bleeding over battered fields. The folders in my saddlebag felt like cinder blocks, burning through the canvas with the secrets they held. I wanted to tear them open, but every shadow on the horizon looked like trouble. I couldn’t afford to let anyone see how tightly I clung to those battered pouches.\n\nJust a month ago, I’d woken up in Civil War-era America as Marcus Wheeler—one of my favorite Union generals from history class.\n\nThe first time I glimpsed my new face in a cracked shaving mirror, I nearly dropped my tin cup. The uniform was stiff with campaign grime, cheekbones sharper, eyes hollowed out by war. I was living inside the legend I’d studied in college, but my old self was gone—replaced by a man with the weight of the world pressing down on his shoulders.\n\nAt first, I dreamed of winning glory in the northern campaigns. But the Secretary was already dying when I arrived, and any hope for battlefield brilliance evaporated in the cold, drafty tent. The orderlies whispered about the Secretary’s failing health, and I realized fast that this wasn’t the history I’d read about. This war was twisted, its battles lost in fever and shadow.\n\nWorse, there was something off about this America—something that crawled in the corners of every conversation.\n\nIt showed in the way the senior officers eyed each other after dark, in the flicker of Savannah’s lights, in the strange metallic tang that lingered in the air with the gunpowder.\n\nI’d read about prisoner exchanges in dusty textbooks, but nothing prepared me for the hollow-eyed Confederate envoys who filed into my tent, tongues gone, secrets locked behind silent stares. They moved like ghosts, faces gaunt under battered gray caps, communicating only with haunted gestures.\n\nAnd then, one morning, a soldier went mad and began gnawing on the corpses of his fallen brothers.\n\nEven now, the memory chilled me. Private Harris—youngest in our ranks—his hands bloody, teeth scraping bone as the rest of us watched in horror. The sound still haunted my sleep.\n\nThe Secretary put an end to it with a single gunshot. That thunderclap echoed through us all. Something evil had woken in the mud that day.\n\nBut the most disturbing thing was still the secret pouches—their contents upended everything I thought I knew about the Civil War.\n\nI’d spent years studying maps and diaries, but nothing prepared me for the codes and rituals in those folders. This wasn’t just a war for territory—it was a battle for reality itself.\n\nBe wary of President Landon—even if the President is incompetent, he genuinely trusts the Secretary. That warning haunted me. Trust here was just another word for betrayal.\n\nLost in thought, my horse stopped. I looked up. Savannah lay before me, gaslights flickering in the dusk, the river’s scent mixing with magnolia and something rotten beneath.\n\nAt the city gate, Harold Hayes waited with the ceremonial guard.\n\nHe wore polished boots and a false smile, a man who’d survived by always picking the winning side. The ceremonial guard’s pressed uniforms were a cruel joke next to my battered command. The humidity clung to us all, thick as syrup.\n\n“General, please follow me back to the governor’s mansion at once. The President awaits you.”\n\nHis tone was clipped, rehearsed, his eyes always weighing, always judging. I felt every gaze on me as we entered the city, rumor and resentment thick in the air. I tightened my grip on my reins, keeping my face blank.\n\nI shot him a look colder than a January wind. Trusting Harold Hayes was like betting on a busted horse. I dismounted, boots scraping the cobblestones, and followed him into Savannah, every nerve thrumming with danger.