Minor Fictional Characters in the American Empire Trilogy

This article lists the various minor fictional characters who appear in the American Empire trilogy, a sub-series of the Southern Victory series. These characters are identified, but play at best a peripheral role in the series. Most were simply mentioned or had a very brief, unimportant role that did not impact the plot, and never appeared again.

Albert Bauer
(Blood and Iron and The Center Cannot Hold)

Albert Bauer was a particularly radical member of the Socialist Party organization in Toledo, Ohio. He worked with Chester Martin on Upton Sinclair's presidential campaign in 1920. Martin had the impression that Bauer was a thoroughly practical man who might appreciate a bar of shaving soap as a Christmas gift more than anything else. He expressed some skepticism of the increased speculation in the stock market in the early 1920s.

Frank Best
(B&I)

Frank Best was foreman in a galoshes factory in Boston, Massachusetts in the 1910s and 1920s. He was known for sexually harassing his female employees, including Sylvia Enos.

Caleb Briggs
(B&I)

Caleb Briggs was a dentist who practiced in Birmingham, Alabama. He served in the Confederate Army during the Great War and was badly injured in a poison gas attack. In the 1920s, he was Chairman of the Birmingham Freedom Party.

Briggs led a group of Freedom Party men (Jefferson Pinkard among them) to protest a speech by President Wade Hampton V, and witnessed the president's assassination by Grady Calkins. Upon a threat from the Alabama militia that they would be massacred, Briggs ordered the Freedom men to retreat. He did his best to keep the Freedom Party moving forward in the bleak period after the assassination.

Abraham Cantorowicz
(TCCH)

Abraham Cantorowicz was a Democratic politician who ran against incumbent Socialist Congresswoman Flora Blackford in New York City's Lower East Side in 1926. While not a token candidate, Cantorowicz had little hope of defeating the massively popular Blackford in her home district, and conceded after falling 3000 votes out of 16,000 behind Blackford on Election Night. During his concession call to Blackford's headquarters, he promised that one day Democratic efforts to win the district would bear fruit. He also questioned Flora on whether she planned to run for re-election if her husband, Vice President Hosea Blackford, became his party's Presidential candidate in 1928.

May Cavendish
(B&I)

May Cavendish was a woman from Boston, Massachusetts. She was a coworker of Sylvia Enos in a galoshes factory in the 1910s and 20s. She introduced Sylvia to cigarettes.

Chris Clogston
(TVO)

Chris Clogston was a quilt vendor in Boston, Massachusetts. She was a ninth-generation Irish-American. She did some work for Sylvia Enos.

Literary comment
This character is named for a science fiction fan, Christi Clogston, who won a "Tuckerization" auction at the 2001 Millenium PhilCon (WorldCon). The auction benefited SFWA's (Science Fiction Writer's Association) Emergency Medical Fund, for writers without medical insurance. The details about the character being a quilt vendor and her heritage come from the fan's personal information, though the real life Chris Clogston is a quilter, she is not a quilt vendor.

Ted Culligan
(B&I;TCCH)

Ted Culligan was a son of a family of farmers living outside of Rosenfeld, Manitoba, Canada. He was engaged to Julia McGregor in the early 1920s, until her terrorist father Arthur was killed trying to assassinate US General George Armstrong Custer. Then he broke off the engagement.

Virgil Donaldson
(TCCH)

Virgil Donaldson was a colonel in the United States Army and a member of the General Staff during the Sinclair Administration. In the late 1920s, he listened to a passionate plea from Colonel Irving Morrell for action against the Confederate States after the CS sent troops into Mexico. Donaldson attempted to dissuade Morrell from filing a report on the matter, citing the lack of political will on the Administration's part to act.

Donaldson's words proved prophetic. Not only did the U.S. refuse to chastise the C.S., the government exiled the troublesome Morrell to British Columbia.

Sheldon Fleischmann
(TCCH)

Sheldon Fleischmann was Max Fleischmann's son. He took over his father's butcher's shop after Max died. Like Max, Sheldon was a Democrat. But he continued his father's tradition of sending cold cuts up to Socialist Party headquarters on Election Day night.

Joe Habicht
(TCCH; RE)

Joe "Ed" Habicht was the first husband of Rita Martin. He was killed during the Great War on the Roanoke Front. His wife remarried in the 1920s. When she learned her second husband Chester Martin, also a veteran of the Roanoke Front, intended to re-enlist when the Second Great War began, she remembered her first husband.

Habicht and Rita never had children.

Jean-Henri Jusserand
(TVO)

Jean-Henri Jusserand (b. c. 1900s) was a colonel in the French Army in 1930s. Despite his youth, Jusserand had benefitted from the rule of Action Francaise and King Charles XI. He became France's military attaché in the Confederate States in 1936.

He met Anne Colleton when she was sent to France by Confederate President Jake Featherston to act as an unofficial ambassador in 1934. He traveled to the C.S. when she returned home in July 1936, where Anne introduced Jusserand to Featherston. At the time, Jusserand wanted some assurance that the C.S. could be counted on to engage the U.S. should France find itself at war with Germany. At the time, Featherston candidly admitted that the C.S. was in no position to do so.

However, by early 1941, Kaiser Wilhelm II was on his deathbed, and with war in Europe seemingly certain, Colleton met with Jusserand and unofficially informed him that the C.S. would support France in the event of war, which Jusserand relayed to his government.

Virgil Joyner
(TCCH-TVO)

Virgil Joyner (d. 1939) was a member of the Freedom Party; he was one of the first people to join, registering around the same time as Jake Featherston and Ferdinand Koenig. As he was a staunch Freedom man, he was given the privilege and the duty of being Featherston's personal driver; he also had the privilege enjoyed by few others to address the Freedom Party ruler as the "Sarge."

While driving in a presidential motorcade through the streets of Richmond in December 1939, Joyner was killed by disgruntled Freedom Party Stalwarts, who were all part of Willy Knight's coup attempt. Featherston mourned Joyner's death.

Ainsworth Layne
(B&I)

Ainsworth Layne was the Radical Liberal candidate for President of the Confederate States in 1921. While he was defeated by Whig candidate Wade Hampton V, the final polling suggested that his loss was at least in part because of the candidacy of the Freedom Party's Jake Featherston

Layne was earnest in his desire to reconcile with both the United States and with the colored residents of the C.S., unpopular positions immediately after the Great War. During the campaign, Featherston made much of the fact that Layne was Harvard-educated, and during one speech, accused Layne of wanting to take the C.S. back into the United States.

Like the Whigs, Layne and the Radical Liberals were subject to violence by the Freedom Party. During a speech in Charleston, South Carolina, Layne's supporters were set upon by Freedom Party Stalwarts led by Roger Kimball. Shots were fired, and Kimball had to prevent a Stalwart from shooting Layne.

Ernie London
(B&I)

Ernie London was the first treasurer of the Freedom Party. In August, 1918, London, at the behest of party chairman Anthony Dresser, moved to remove Jake Featherston as head of propaganda for the Freedom Party. Party vice chairman Bert McWilliams seconded the motion. The motion was set for a floor vote, and Dresser, McWilliams, and London gave speeches outlining their reasons for wanting Featherston out. Instead, Featherston outlined his understanding of propaganda and his value as a propagandist, turning the party to his side. Party secretary Ferdinand Koenig moved that Dresser step down and that Featherston replace him as chairman of the party, and Featherston won the subsequent vote.

Samuel Longstreet
(TCCH)

Samuel Longstreet was a Whig Senator from Virginia. The grandson of former general and President James Longstreet, Samuel himself was the Whig nominee for the presidency in 1933. He and his running-mate Hugo Black were defeated by the Freedom Party's Jake Featherston, making Longstreet the first Whig candidate to lose a Presidential election in Confederate history.

Literary comment
It's possible that Samuel Longstreet was the only Whig candidate in CS history to lose a presidential election, but the candidate in 1939 is never identified.

Maximiliano
(TCCH)

Maximiliano was a dog owned by Hipolito Rodriguez at his farm near Baroyeca in the Confederate State of Sonora in the 1930s. The dog was ugly, vicious and stupid, just like the Mexican Emperor Maximilian III, hence the name. Rodriguez sardonically thought to himself that had he named the dog that on the other side of the border, within Imperial domains, he would have been executed for sedition.

Walter McKenna
(B-B&I)

Walter McKenna (D) was Vice President of the United States during Theodore Roosevelt's presidency (1913-1921), which included the Great War. McKenna was an "amiable non-entity who was almost as fat as Congressman Taft." In 1920, Roosevelt and McKenna's bid for a third term was defeated by the Socialist ticket of Upton Sinclair and Hosea Blackford.

Literary comment
This character's name is give at one point as Kennan. See Inconsistencies in Turtledove's Work.

Bert McWilliams
(B&I)

Bert McWilliams was the first vice chairman of the Freedom Party. In August 1918, McWilliams, at the behest of party chairman Anthony Dresser, moved to remove Jake Featherston as head of propaganda for the Freedom Party. Party treasurer Ernie London seconded the motion. The motion was set for a floor vote, and Dresser, McWilliams, and London gave speeches outlining their reasons for wanting Featherston out. Instead, Featherston outlined his understanding of propaganda and his value as a propagandist, turning the party to his side. Party secretary Ferdinand Koenig moved that Dresser step down and that Featherston replace him as chairman of the party, and Featherston won the subsequent vote.

Rose O'Doull
(B&I)

Rose O'Doull (d. c 1940) was the mother of Leonard O'Doull. In 1921, she travelled to Riviere-du-Loup, Quebec from her home in the United States to celebrate the birth of her grandson, Lucien O'Doull. During her visit to Quebec she was a house guest of her son's in-laws, Lucien and Marie Galtier.

By 1941, Rose O'Doull had passed away.

John Oglethorpe
(B&I-TCCH)

John Oglethorpe (b. ca 1860) owned and operated a dinner in Augusta, Georgia, for many years. He worked as the cook while employing several blacks as waiters.

Shortly after the Great War, Oglethorpe hired Scipio (who was using the name "Xerxes") as a waiter after Oglethorpe's long-time employee, Aurelius, confirmed he knew the job by observing him during a trial period. Unfortunately, Oglethorpe had to let Scipio go in 1919 after rising unemployment had an adverse effect on his business, and Oglethorpe could no longer afford two waiters.

In 1933, a desperate Scipio sought out Oglethorpe (whom Scipio still held in high regard) for possible employment. Unfortunately, Oglethorpe had nothing.

Oglethorpe despised the Freedom Party, referring to them as "yahoos".

At the outset of the Second Great War, Oglethorpe's poor health caused him to shut down his business.

Cicero Pittman
(TVO-IatD)

Cicero Pittman became Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court in 1935 following the death of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. He was appointed by President Herbert Hoover and, like Holmes, was a conservative Democrat. He administered the Oath of Office to President Al Smith in 1937 and 1941, to Charles W. La Follette on Smith's death in 1942, and to Thomas Dewey in 1945.

Literary Comment
The 1945 Chief Justice is not named in the text, but since no change in office is noted, it stands to reason that it's still Pittman.

Nephi Pratt
(TVO)

Nephi Pratt represented Utah in the United States House of Representatives during the brief period (1937-1941) between the once-rebellious state's readmission to the Union and the start of yet another rebellion. He was once ejected from the floor of the House of Representatives by Speaker Clarence Cannon for arguing with Congressman Barry Goldwater of New Mexico out of order. Pratt left the room with dignity. Goldwater, in contrast, scuffled with the men who removed him, even landing a good blow on one.

Pratt was the grandson of Orson Pratt, one of six Mormon leaders executed during the Second Mexican War, a fact he reminded the House of prior to his ejection.

Premier of Quebec
(TCCH)

In 1924, the Premier of the Republic of Quebec attended the funeral of former US President Theodore Roosevelt at the Lee estate in West Virginia.

Literary comment
This unnamed character is the only Quebecois national leader ever mentioned in the series.

Oliver Roland
(B&I)

Oliver Roland was the first captain of the USS Remembrance. In 1920, he hosted the Lord Mayor of Dublin and an Irish Admiral aboard the Remembrance to officially commemorate the independence of the Republic of Ireland. Almost immediately after, Roland led the ship against a British-backed uprising in Belfast.

Roland was a swarthy man of French descent.

Note: for the similarly named minor fictional character in The Two Georges, see Roland Oliver.

Carlos Ruiz
(TCCH-RE)

Carlos Ruiz was a farmer from Baroyeca, Sonora. He was a lifelong friend of Hipolito Rodriguez. In 1943, his son was wounded while serving in the Confederate States Army during the Second Great War.

Enid Sinclair
(B&I)

Enid Sinclair was the wife of US President Upton Sinclair. She served as the First Lady of the United States from 1921 through 1929. She was a vivacious red-head. Flora Hamburger met Enid at Sinclair's inauguration in 1921. The First Lady wore an off-shoulder green velvet gown that Hamburger was convinced would cause multiple heart attacks in her own congressional district.

Colonel Sorenson
(TCCH)

Colonel Sorenson was the U.S. military governor of Salt Lake City immediately after the Great War until 1924., when he was relieved from this duty by General Hunter Liggett, Chief of the General Staff. While Liggett viewed Sorenson as an able officer, he was too unbending to adapt to President Upton Sinclair's plan to bring Utah back into the country. He was succeeded by Colonel Abner Dowling.

Captain Stein
(TVO-RE)

Captain Stein (d. 1941) commanded the USS Remembrance from 1928 when she was put back into service, through the Pacific War until her sinking off Midway by the Japanese during the Second Great War. An officer of the old school, Stein deliberately went down with his ship.

Eyechart Szczerbiakowicz
(TVO-RE)

"Eyechart" Szczerbiakowicz (d. 1941) was a sailor in damage control on the USS Remembrance. He was missing and presumed drowned when the ship was sunk by the Japanese.

He received his nickname because his surname looked like something you would find at an optometrist’s and was considered unpronounceable by anyone not of the Polish culture.

Literary Comment
For those who are curious, the correct pronunciation is something like "Shchair-be-OCK-o-vich," although the Polish sounds represented by consonant clusters often have no equivalents in English, so phonetic sticklers have to settle for approximations.

Sarah Wyckoff
(B&I)

Sarah Wyckoff was a widow from Boston, Massachusetts. She was a co-worker of Sylvia Enos in a galoshes factory in the 1910s and 20s. She shared Sylvia's contempt for Frank Best. She admitted at one point to wishing she could put a certain part of Best's anatomy in a size-two shoe-mold.