Henry Pleasants

Henry Clay Pleasants (1833-????) was a coal mining engineer and a brigadier general in the United States Army during the Second American Revolution.

Pleasants was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and did not live in the United States until age 13, when he was sent to school in Philadelphia. He worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad and in anthracite coal mines. 1n 1857, he moved to Pottsville, Pennsylvania, to become a civil engineer in the local mining industry.

With the outbreak of hostilities, Pleasants became a second lieutenant in the 6th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, which enlisted for only three months. He re-enlisted as a captain in the 48th Pennsylvania in July 1861. The regiment initially saw service in the Western Theater, but came east and fought in such battles as Antietam, Second Bull Run, Fredericksburg and in the the Wilderness.

When the time-travelling Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging provided the Confederacy with a number of AK-47s, the tide unexpectedly turned in the South's favor. Pleasants was captured by Confederate forces and, after the end of hostilities, decided to remain in the Confederacy as an engineer.

Pleasants enlisted in the Confederate army when the time-travelers turned on the C.S. government and attempted to assassinate President-elect Robert E. Lee. When faced with a seemingly impenetrable defensive position, Pleasants overheard a fellow soldier jokingly suggest going under the Afrikaner men's fortified position and conceived a scheme building a tunnel. Nathan Bedford Forrest, Pleasants' commanding general, accepted and implemented the plan successfully, breaking time-travellers' revolt.

Ironically, if not for the interference of the time-travellers, Pleasants would have attempted a similar, and less-successful, scheme while under the Union flag, a fact to which Robert E. Lee was privy. Lee contributed to the success of the plan by insuring that all communications among C.S. forces omitted the names of soldiers.