Minor Fictional Characters in the Great War Trilogy

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

Agamemnon
(Walk in Hell)

Agamemnon was a former hired hand on a plantation owned by Jubal Marberry. Following the Red Rebellion and the establishment of the Congaree Socialist Republic, he served on the revolutionary tribunal that executed his former boss in 1915.

Agrippa
(American Front, WiH)

Agrippa was a Negro employee at the Sloss Steel Foundry at the beginning of the Great War. He and Vespasian worked the night shift in the same positions held by Jefferson Pinkard and Bedford Cunningham during the day. He'd been born before manumission; he was in his thirties when Pinkard first met him.

Agrippa and Vespasian arranged to have Vespasian's cousin Pericles work with Pinkard after Cunningham was called to service in 1915. Unfortunately, Pericles was a Red, and was taken into custody. Months later, Agrippa informed Pinkard that Pericles had been executed for sedition.

Ajax
(WiH)

Ajax was a small boy whose parents worked for Anne Colleton on the Marshlands plantation. When former butler Scipio returned following Colleton's summons, Ajax was dispatched to notify Colleton that Scipio had returned.

Albert
(WiH)

Albert was a sailor in the United States Navy, serving aboard the USS Punishment

In 1916, the Punishment dropped anchor in the Cumberland River, near Clarksville, Tennessee, for R&R. The first who went ashore were crewmen George Enos, Stanley, Albert, and Grover. Not long afterward, a Confederate shell attack destroyed the Punishment, sinking it and killing the entire crew. The four sailors who went ashore were unscathed and the monitor's only survivors.

Private Altrock
(AF)

Altrock was a private under Captain Irving Morrell's command in Sonora at the beginning of the Great War. When Morrell was injured outside of Imuris, Altrock bandaged his leg.

Milo Axelrod
(AF)

Milo Axelrod (d. 1914) was a druggist in Richmond, Virginia. As the Great War began, he found one of his employees, Reggie Bartlett, attending a demonstration at Capitol Square when Bartlett was supposed to be minding the store and fired Bartlett. He was conscripted into the Army shortly thereafter, and stopped a bullet with his face on the Maryland front.

Ralph Briggs
(WiH)

Ralph Briggs was a C.S. Navy officer during the Great War. He commanded a submersible until 1915, when he and his ship were captured by the United States using a Q-boat, and sent to a prison camp in West Virginia. After a period of captivity, Briggs met Reggie Bartlett. Briggs and Bartlett struck up a friendship, and eventually, the two escaped together and reached the C.S. in 1916. He was given command of another submersible which was captured by the USS Ericsson before the year was out. He scuttled his ship and was taken prisoner again. Upon learning he had escaped prison once, the US sailors wanted to murder him, though George Enos, who was present when he was captured the first time, spoke up on his behalf and he was taken prisoner again. Roger Kimball often directed scornful remarks at his ill-fated friend's expense.

Fred Butcher
(AF)

Fred Butcher was a fisherman from Boston, Massachusetts. He served aboard the F/V Ripple with George Enos as first-mate in the beginning of the Great War.

Butcher and the rest of the crew were captured by the Confederate ship Swamp Fox a few months into the war. After some time in the Confederate camps, Butcher and the crew were returned to the United States as part of a prisoner exchange. The crew of the Ripple were taken home on a Spanish vessel.

During the interwar period, Butcher became the successful captain of his own fishing vessel. He hired George Enos, Jr. when the latter left school.

Charlie Fixico
(AF)

Charlie Fixico was a chief of the Creek Nation in Sequoyah during the Great War. He eloquently pleaded for Confederate cavalry officer Hiram Lincoln to stay with his men and fight off the US advance on Okmulgee. Lincoln didn't want to dig in, but Fixico created such a scene that Lincoln and his men felt that honor demanded that they stay.

The Confederates and the Creek were able to fight off the advance, and save Okmulgee. However, Fixico was not content long to simply leave things at that. He ordered an attack on US positions around Beggs with the goal of taking back the oil fields. Although Lincoln tried to convince him of the futility of the offensive, Fixico insisted, sending many of his men and the Confederates to their deaths.

Max Fleischmann
(AF, WiH, Blood and Iron)

Max Fleischmann (d. ca. 1918) was a kosher butcher from New York City's tenth ward. His shop was located on Centre Market Place and, although he was a Democrat who voted for Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, he rented the upper level of his shop to the Socialist Party and Herman Bruck. Flora Hamburger was one of the Socialists who worked out of this space prior to her election to Congress. He felt a certain affection for her, after she helped drive off some members of the Soldiers' Circle who harassed Fleischmann. He provided food for the party on election nights. He even bragged that he'd vote for her when she stood for election in 1918.

Max died while Flora was serving in Philadelphia. His son, Sheldon, took over his business.

Alfred Forbes
(AF)

Alfred Forbes was an art aficionado from Charleston, South Carolina. In 1914, he attended an exhibition of post-impressionist European art at Marshlands Plantation. He was interested in the works of Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin, and Georges Braque. He was also openly scornful of American and German culture, and regretted that the leading Central Powers nations were too formidable to be laughed off. He and Anne Colleton, sponsor of the exhibition, commiserated on the recent defeat the United States Navy had dealt the Royal Navy in the Sandwich Islands.

Otherwise, Forbes attempted to attract Colleton to himself sexually by a pseudo-intellectual expansion on a theme of contrasts. For her part, Colleton found Forbes to be a dandy (though of course she would not be so rude as to say so), wondered how he had managed to evade military service at the outset of the Great War, and, though she did concede that he was a good-looking man, easily resisted his charms. Forbes eventually gave up his attempts at seduction and moved on to other pursuits.

Foulkes
(AF)

Foulkes was a lieutenant under Captain Irving Morrell's command in Sonora at the beginning of the Great War. In the ambush outside Imuris, Foulkes remained with Morrell in the center.

Gilbert
(WiH)

Colonel Gilbert was an officer on the United States General Staff. He bore a passing resemblance to Franz Joseph, the Emperor of Austria-Hungary. When the offensive against the Mormon Uprising in 1916 proved particularly bloody because of the Mormons' use of landmines, Gilbert was openly contemptuous of the strategist behind the plan, Major Irving Morrell.

Clem Goebel
(AF)

Clem Goebel was a citizen of Covington, Kentucky when it was a part of the Confederate States. He was involved in wholesale goods, and mourned the costs the Great War would impose on his business. He considered leaving Covington before the war started, on advice from his cousin Morton, and warned Cincinnatus to do the same, heedless of the limitations Cincinnatus lived under as a black man. While Goebel didn't help Cincinnatus load merchandise into his truck, he did give him a Dr Hopper.

Morton Goebel
(AF)

Morton Goebel was a citizen of Lexington Kentucky when it was still part of the Confederate States. He warned his cousin Clem to leave the city of Covington before the Great War started.

Griselda
(AF)

Griselda was a maid who worked for Anne Colleton at the Marshlands estate. According to Scipio who managed the household staff, she was fairly lazy and wasn't above playing practical jokes on the butler. After a rebuke, he decided to have her fired to which she retorted that she was going to get a job in a factory which would pay better than Colleton ever would. Cherry asked Scipio if she could come out from the fields and take her place to which he agreed. She was then able to use her position to keep Jacob Colleton distracted whilst the Red Rebellion fermented on the plantation.

Grover
(WiH)

Grover was a sailor in the United States Navy, serving aboard the USS Punishment

In 1916, the Punishment dropped anchor in the Cumberland River, near Clarksville, Tennessee, for R&R. The first who went ashore were crewmen George Enos, Stanley, Albert, and Grover. Not long afterward, a Confederate shell attack destroyed the Punishment, sinking it and killing the entire crew. The four sailors who went ashore were unscathed and the monitor's only survivors.

Heintzelman
(WiH)

Heintzelman was a US soldier during the Great War. He was stationed in Kentucky in 1916. He and his comrade Vasilievsky followed Murray's lead and refused to work with Cincinnatus, arguing that he was doing "white man's work" by driving. Their superior, Lt. Straubing, directly ordered them to work and threatened them with court-martial, before storming from the warehouse. Heintzelman and his colleagues thought that they'd bluffed their superior, but instead he returned with MPs and ordered all three arrested for insubordination.

Virgil Hobson
(AF)

Virgil Hobson delivered the Charleston Mercury, a newspaper read by Anne Colleton. He carried this particular newspaper, as well as a crop of others, by mule to the Marshlands estate. He was an alcoholic, and it fell to Scipio to deal with him as part of the butler's household duties.

Roger Hodges
(AF)

Roger Hodges (d. 1914) was a West Virginian who served with Chester Martin at the beginning of the Great War. He was killed in action against the Confederates at Catawba Mountain early in the war after he got caught up in a trip wire and was riddled by bullets.

Jerome Hotchkiss
(WiH)

Jerome Hotchkiss (d. 1915) was a Major in Confederate Army. At some point he lost his left hand and it was replaced with a hook. He was assigned to fight the Red Rebellion in 1915 and attempted to put down the nascent Congaree Socialist Republic. When plantation owner Anne Colleton attempted to return to Marshlands, he turned her away, confiscating her car in the name of the CSA. He also parleyed with Scipio over a prisoner exchange.

During the death throes of the Republic, an escaping Scipio, who had found a chicken in the swamps, ran into Hotchkiss. Hotchkiss demanded that Scipio turn the chicken over to him. Scipio agreed, but then Hotchkiss recognized Scipio as the man he parleyed with months earlier. Before Hotchkiss could draw his firearm, Scipio brained him with a rock, knocking him to the ground and then proceeded to beat him over the head repeatedly until Hotchkiss was dead.

Jake Hoyland
(AF)

Jake Hoyland was a first lieutenant under Captain Irving Morrell's command in Sonora at the beginning of the Great War. Hoyland was born and raised in Michigan. Morrell didn't think much of Hoyland, figuring that he might one day make captain, but no higher. In the ambush outside Imuris, Hoyland covered Morrell's left flank.

Island
(AF)

Island (d. 1915) was a Negro resident of the Confederate States. He was part of the socialist conspiracy at the Colletons' Marshlands plantation, along with Cassius, Cherry and the reluctant Scipio. When the rebellion began in 1915, Island attempted to kill, but was instead killed by, the crippled Jacob Colleton.

Heber Louis Jackson
(WiH)

Heber Louis Jackson (d. 1915?), was a high ranking member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He took part in the Mormon uprising of 1914, but by 1915, he was the only senior member left, making him the de-facto president. Realizing that his situation was hopeless, Jackson surrendered to General Alonzo Kent at Tabernacle Park in the town of Ogden. After surrendering, he was taken into custody and charged with treason for rising against the United States. This was typically a capital crime.

Jonah
(AF)

Jonah was a black worker from Marshlands. In the early days of the Great War, he fled the plantation owned by Anne Colleton for Columbia to get a job in one of the factories since white manpower was in short supply. While on the plantation, he was linked to another worker named Letitia, who left with him.

Alonzo Kent
(WiH)

Alonzo Kent was a major general in the United States Army. He was critical in subduing the Mormon uprising of 1915, and became the military governor of Utah when martial law was imposed.

Koenig
(AF)

Koenig was a lieutenant under Captain Irving Morrell's command in Sonora at the beginning of the Great War. In the ambush outside Imuris, Koenig covered Morrell's right flank.

Note: This person is not related to Ferdinand Koenig.

Pierre Lapin
(AF)

Pierre Lapin (d 1914) was a Quebecois lieutenant in the Canadian Army during the Great War. Lapin set up a strongpoint on Arthur McGregor's farm to resist the United States Army's march on Rosenfeld, Manitoba at the beginning of the war. Lapin and all his men were killed when the strongpoint was destroyed by US forces.

Literary comment
His name translates as Peter Rabbit.

Letitia
(AF)

Letitia was a black worker from Marshlands. In the early days of the Great War, she fled the plantation owned by Anne Colleton for Columbia to get a job in one of the textile plants since white manpower was in short supply. While on the plantation, she was linked to another hand named Jonah. He left Marshlands with her.

Morton P. Lewis
(Breakthroughs)

Morton P. Lewis was a pharmacist's mate aboard the USS Dakota in the last year of the Great War. He routinely provided Sam Carsten with zinc oxide during Carsten's time aboard, to soothe Carsten's notorious sun-based skin ailment.

John Liholiho
(WiH)

John Liholiho (d. 1917) was a Sandwich Islands man who encountered US sailors Sam Carsten and Vic Crosetti after the U.S. conquered the Islands. As his father had been an assistant minister for sugar production in the British administration, Liholiho had received a more "English" education, even speaking with an English accent.

Carsten and Crosetti first saw Liholiho surfing while they were on leave in August 1916. Despite Crosetti's impatience to get on with their leave, Carsten talked with Liholiho for a time about British vs. U.S. rule, and the nature of race relations and occupation, with Liholiho being quite tactful in his interactions with the two Americans. After the conversation ended, Crossetti became convinced that Liholiho might be a British spy, but Carsten didn't quite believe it. However, when both sailors were en route to Chile both reconsidered, and decided to send a letter to the people in charge of the Islands, recommending Liholiho be investigated.

Liholiho was in fact, a British spy. He was investigated, arrested, and sentenced to death. Carsten and Crossetti learned of this in February 1917. Both were promoted for helping to catch him.

Malcolm Lockerby
(AF)

Malcolm Lockerby was a sergeant in the Canadian Royal Winnipeg Rifles, the "Little Black Devils". Early in 1915, Lockerby undertook a solo mission to sabotage a rail line used by the U.S. military. In the snowy darkness, Lockerby skied right over his target, and found his way to the McGregor farm, where he received tea and a moment of respite before he returned to his mission.

Lysis
(AF)

Lysis was a Negro laborer attached to a Confederate Marine unit during the Great War. He was also a boxer. In 1915, Lysis toured various Army divisions, boxing their champion Negro boxers. During such a match, Lysis battled Commodus, who was attached to Reggie Bartlett's division, knocking him out in the third round. Bartlett had bet on Commodus. During the fight, he briefly wondered how Lysis would do in a fight with a white man.

Governor MacFarlane
(WiH)

Governor MacFarlane was Governor of New York during the Great War. A staunch Democrat, MacFarlane appointed his friend Daniel Miller to represent New York City's heavily Socialist Lower East Side in the United States House of Representatives following the sudden death of Myron Zuckerman in 1916.

Demetrios Mantarakis
(AF)

Demetrios, a cousin of U.S. soldier Paul Mantarakis, worked on the Philadelphia wharf. His illness, contracted from walking around with wet feet, was a cautionary tale to Paul.

Jubal Marberry
(AF, WiH)

Jubal Marberry (d. 1915) was an aged plantation owner who was captured by members of the Congaree Socialist Republic and tried as an "exploiter of the proletariat". Following a very brief trial in a kangaroo court, Cassius, Cherry, Scipio and Marberry's former plantation hand Agamemnon found Marberry guilty, and ordered his execution. Before his execution, he informed the tribunal that whatever they did to him, they would be "hung higher than Haman" when caught. Marberry himself was shot to death.

Daniel Miller
(WiH)

Daniel Miller was an obscure New York City lawyer and Democrat when his friend, Governor MacFarlane, appointed him to serve the late Myron Zuckerman's unexpired Congressional term in the United States House of Representatives in 1916. He was soundly defeated by Socialist candidate Flora Hamburger in a general election later that year.

Murray
(WiH)

Murray was US soldier during the Great War. He was stationed in Kentucky in 1916. He and his comrades Vasilievsky and Heintzelman refused to work with Cincinnatus, arguing that he was doing "white man's work" by driving. Their superior, Lt. Straubing, directly ordered them to work and threatened them with court-martial, before storming from the warehouse. Murray and his colleagues thought that they'd bluffed their superior, but instead he returned with MPs and ordered all three arrested for insubordination.

Dom Pedro IV of Brazil
(B)

Dom Pedro IV was the Emperor of Brazil during the Great War. Through most of the war, he kept his country neutral, although both sides actively courted him. In 1917, when it was clear that the Central Powers had the upper-hand, Dom Pedro declared war on the Entente. Brazil's entry into the war bottled-up Argentina, and cut off a valuable supply line to Britain, which helped to accelerate the Entente's capitulation.

Lucas Phelps
(AF)

Luke Phelps (d. 1915) worked on the fishing trawler Ripple out of Boston, Massachusetts with George Enos before and during the Great War. He and the rest of the crew of the Rippled were captured by the Confederate States and placed in a prisoner of war camp in 1914. While a prisoner, he repeatedly insulted and heckled the prison guards. One guard shot him in anger after Phelps claimed he visualized a toilet bowl as the guard's face.

Congressman Potts
(WiH)

Congressman Potts was a Socialist member of the United States House of Representatives from Brooklyn during the Great War. In 1916, he was walking through Philadelphia with his friend and colleague Myron Zuckerman when Zuckerman tripped on a staircase and fell to his death.

Hampton Ready
(B)

Hampton Ready (d. 1917) commanded the submersible CSS Bonito, during closing years of the Great War. Bonito operated in the in the same patrol square as the CSS Bonefish. In 1916, he and his wife, Katie, celebrated the birth of their first daughter. Six months later, in the Spring of 1917, while Ready was operating in the Atlantic, he attacked a US convoy and sank a freighter. Unfortunately his boat was detected and severely crippled. Forced to the surface, Ready quickly opened the hatch and threw out the boats papers, weighted in a sack. As he did this, he was shot in the head by George Enos, manning the one-pounder gun on the USS Ericsson. The U.S. Navy initially reported that they'd sunk the Bonefish, a report that amused the commander of the Bonefish, Roger Kimball.

Katie Ready
(B)

Katie Ready was the wife of Confederate submersible commander Hampton Ready. She and Hampton welcomed their first child, a daughter, in 1916. In 1917, Hampton was killed when his submersible, the CSS Bonito was sunk by the USS Ericsson.

Aaron Rosenblum
(B)

Aaron Rosenblum was a haberdasher and tailor in St. Matthews, South Carolina. In 1917 Anne Colleton came to Rosenblum's shop to purchase a half dozen pairs of stout trousers for herself to hunt Reds in the swamps of the Congaree. At first Rosenblum thought the purchase was for her brother and was scandalized to learn she wanted them for herself. However, as commonly occurred, he did what she wanted.

Rosenblum spoke with strange accent, half Low Country drawl, half guttural Yiddish, that never failed to amuse Colleton, although she succeeded in hiding her smile.

Stinky Salley
(WiH-B)

Christopher "Stinky" Salley was in the same unit of the Confederate Army as Jefferson Pinkard. He'd been a clerk in civilian life, and was fussily precise. Their sergeant gave Salley the moniker of "Stinky" because he had evaded bath call one evening. He was quite testy about the nickname. He fought the Red Rebellion in Georgia, and then fought in Texas, until he was wounded in the left hand in January 1917. The wound was serious enough to get him out of the fighting, but by no means serious enough to cause permanent damage.

Wendell Schmitt
(WiH)

Wendell Schmitt (d. 1915?) was a high ranking member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He was appointed commander of all military forces of the Nation of Deseret, and led his make-shift army in the Mormon uprising of 1914, but by 1915, his forces had reached their limit and were unable to resist the arms of the US Army. Along with what remained of the Desert leadership, he surrendered to General Alonzo Kent at Tabernacle Park in the town of Ogden. When he listened to the harsh terms laid down by the US, he warned General Kent that he would sow the seed of future hatred and bloodshed. Kent chose to ignore him, and after surrendering, Schmitt was taken into custody and charged with treason against the United States.

Emmanuel Sellars
(AF)

Emmanuel Sellars was Confederate President Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of War at the beginning of the Great War. He was present in Richmond when Wilson officially announced that the C.S. would support the Entente in the coming war. Reggie Bartlett saw Sellars from a distance, giving order to various troops. Bartlett feared that Sellars was demanding the troops forcefully control the crowd. Instead, Sellars ordered the troops to fire into the air to force the crowd to pay heed to Wilson.

Sellars was a portly man with a beard similar to King George V's.

Stanley
(WiH)

Stanley was a sailor in the United States Navy, serving aboard the USS Punishment

In 1916, the Punishment dropped anchor in the Cumberland River, near Clarksville, Tennessee, for R&R. The first who went ashore were crewmen George Enos, Stanley, Albert, and Grover. Not long afterward, a Confederate shell attack destroyed the Punishment, sinking it and killing the entire crew. The four sailors who went ashore were unscathed and the monitor's only survivors.

Maggie Stevenson
(AF; Return Engagement)

Maggie Stevenson (b. ca 1890) was the undisputed queen of Honolulu's women of easy virtue during the Great War. At the time she charged $30 when the going rate was three and gave satisfaction for the money.

She managed to hold onto her money and invest it wisely. She ended up owning half of Hotel Street by the outbreak of the Second Great War. Her business card said she was a caterer which was true since her operation catered to every appetite.

In 1941 Sam Carsten happened to pass Stevenson on Hotel Street and recognized her, calling out her name in surprise. This amused Stevenson and the two chatted briefly. Stevenson gave Carsten her card with "Anything" written on the back and invited him to present it at the Oceanview which she owned. Carsten did so and to his surprise was treated as though he were an admiral and not a lieutenant.

Angelina Tresca
(AF)

Angelina Tresca (d. April 22, 1915) was the sister of Maria Tresca. The two were members of the Socialist Party of the United States, and worked at the Party's New York Fourteenth Ward headquarters along with Flora Hamburger. Angela was killed at the Remembrance Day riot of 1915, when a stray bullet hit her in the chest. The shooter was never caught.

Flora Hamburger invoked Angela's memory when making speeches during her political career.

Vasilievsky
(WiH)

Vasilievsky was US soldier during the Great War. He was stationed in Kentucky in 1916. He and his comrade Heintzelman followed Murray's lead and refused to work with Cincinnatus, arguing that he was doing "white man's work" by driving. Their superior, Lt. Straubing, directly ordered them to work and threatened them with court-martial, before storming from the warehouse. Vasilevsky and his colleagues thought that they'd bluffed their superior, but instead he returned with MPs and ordered all three arrested for insubordination.