Perseus (Southern Victory)

Perseus was black revolutionary socialist leader.

During the first year of the Great War, Perseus was one of the black workers attached to the artillery battery commanded by Jeb Stuart III and in which Jake Featherston was a sergeant. Featherston, using the "overseer lore" which he learned from his father, supsected that Perseus was "more smart and less servile" than he appeared.

Perseus' job was to take of the battery's animals, which he did very comptently. However, in one situation of extrme emergency, Perseus and his fellow Nero helped Featherston operate the gun, whuch was not supposed to be blacks' work, and kept secrtet about it later. During the year's fighting there developed a kind of grudging respect between Perseus and Featherston, even while Perseus was preparing for his part in the uprising and Featherston supsected Perseus of being "up to somthing".

On the eve of the Red Rebellion, the battery was in Hampstead, Maryland. Featherston saw Perseus and many other blacks sitting around a fire, joined and played poker with them for a while, losing heavily. Later that night, Perseus took a risk by caming to the sleeping Featherston and woke him up to say goodbye and deliver a warning: "We ain't acting like niggers no more, Marse Jake. Fugured I'd tell you, on account of we don;t got to. You got to be careful fo' a while, is all I got to say". He then went off with the other blacks and Featherston never met him again.

It is unknown whether Perseus' survived the suppression of the Red Rebellion and, if so, how he fared later. Featherston in his later career never refered to Perseus and seemed reluctant to recall the incident even in his own mind.