Arkansas has grown throughout the two-term presidency of James Monroe as a haven for Northern abolitionists and freed slaves who have been forced to leave most states. Sam Houston, adopted Cherokee, has been serving as Monroe's commissioner of Indian affairs, and working to protect the Confederacy. Driscoll has been building his army and strong forts in expectation that eventually Southern state militias, or even the U.S. Army, will invade. He proves correct when a large but poorly organized contingent of militia and mercenaries moves up the Mississippi River toward the Arkansas, raping and pillaging Indian settlements along the way. At the confluence of the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers, the Arkansas Army and Indian tribes outmaneuver and slaughter them.

This battle plays a pivotal role in the presidential election of 1824, with candidates Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and John Calhoun. As in actual history, Andrew Jackson wins a plurality of the electoral vote, followed by Adams, Clay and Calhoun, throwing the decision into the House of Representatives, where Clay is speaker. However, where in our history Clay allied with Adams to make Adams president, here Clay uses Southern states' concern over Arkansas to ally with Calhoun to make Clay himself president. President Clay almost immediately declares war on Arkansas, at a time when even the much-reduced U.S. Army is significantly larger than the Arkansas Army.

But many influential Americans do not support such a war, and conspire to assure that this war is the downfall of Clay, Calhoun and their racist supporters. Jackson and Adams conspire to seek election in 1828, wanting the war to be Clay's downfall. Sam Houston has suffered a tragedy that leads him to move to Arkansas to help Driscoll in the war. Several U.S. generals intentionally retire or covertly inhibit war efforts. John Brown moves his abolitionist cult to Arkansas and joins the Indian tribes in supporting their ruthless form of warfare. Retired British general Robert Ross, hero of the Napoleonic Wars as well as the War of 1812, comes to Arkansas to assist the Arkansas Army. When the U.S. Army, along with allied state militias, finally attacks, the results are not what they expect.

A compelling rewrite of history

Eric Flint's second book in his Trail of Glory series continues the story begun in the first book, set in 1812. The purpose of the series is to write a history where the Cherokee Trail of Tears does not occur. His simple and elegant point of departure from actual history is Sam Houston's injury in the War of 1812, which in reality was severe enough to end his role in the war. Flint has sought to assure that all of the changes in history in these books grows from this single event, and he has done an admirable job. After reading these two books, this alternative history seems, if anything, more likely than our own.

Flint's narrative is reasonably fast-paced, considering the need to have so much conveyed by dialogue among his dozens of major characters, almost all of whom are actual historical figures. But it is these many characters that make the novel both engaging and compelling. Sam Houston, the primary protagonist, comes alive as an eminently tolerant, shrewd, affable whiskey drinker who is as comfortable with the Cherokees in Arkansas as with national leaders in the drawing rooms of Washington, D.C. John Quincy Adams is an intellectual who sees that the nation must address the issue of slavery. Andrew Jackson is another shrewd whiskey lover, but also the consummate leader. Senator Richard Johnson is a plantation-owning Kentucky gentleman whose wife is a freed mulatto, maintaining his position by likability and low-key charisma. John Brown is a colorfully crazed fundamentalist/abolitionist whose extended family kills slave catchers. Sheffield Parker is a young freed slave whose family flees Baltimore for Arkansas, where he becomes an army soldier and then officer. Ross' military skill is exceeded only by his hatred of slavery. Other historical figures who are fascinatingly portrayed include Lt. Col. Zachary Taylor, poet-turned-journalist William Cullen Bryant and various Cherokee chiefs.

1812: The Arkansas War is highly recommended reading for all fans of American history and alternate-history novels. It is advisable to read the first book in the series before reading this one, however, since those characters and events flow directly into this book—indeed, these two books are really structured more like a single long novel.