Abner Dowling

Abner Dowling was a career member of the U.S. Army. He served as General George Custer's adjudant as a Major during the Great War, he held the rank of colonel while military governor of Utah, and he was a general during the Second Great War. Dowling was quite remarkable for being in the right place at the right time. He is generally considered to have been a very decent human being, if not a particularly talented soldier, especially compared with the flamboyant Custer, or the brilliant Irving Morrell. Even in his own estimation, he was not a "great" general, but he successfully strove to be a "good" one, consciously acting in a manner opposite of Custer.

Dowling's early time as Custer's adjudant provides little hint as to his remarkable career. During that time Dowling developed a strong dislike for his superior. He tried to stop Custer from issuing orders and plans that Dowling knew were mistakes, but most of the time Custer didn't bother to listen. At the time, Dowling even felt that the Barrel Roll Offensive would be a disaster because of the fact that it was against barrel policy at the time, but it turned out to be the campaign that won the war. Custer and Dowling were both promoted due to the campaign's stunning success.

After the war, Dowling continued to serve under Custer first in Philadelphia and then when Custer served as governor-general in Canada. He was also in the same car with Custer, during the old man's retirement parade, when Arthur McGregor attempted to assassinate the general by throwing a bomb into the car. Custer was able to save both of their lives by throwing the bomb back at its maker.

Once Custer retired, Dowling was promoted to Colonel in accordance with his new post as military governor of Salt Lake City. His time at the helm (1924 - 1937) was spent dealing with the still-vengeful Mormons, though he managed to keep the peace. He was forced to take over as military governor of Utah after General John Pershing was assassinated by a Mormon sniper.

He ruled the state until U.S. President Al Smith lifted the occupation and gave Utah states' rights again. Dowling was promoted to Brigadier General and was given command of the troops keeping order in Kentucky and fighting against the Freedom Party rebels. Once the Richmond Agreement was put in place, General Dowling presided over the plebecites, and oversaw the resulting withdrawal of U.S. forces to the Midwest. Dowling was then assigned to defend Ohio; the War Department generously provided him with plans from before 1914 that made no mention of barrels, aircraft or gas.

At the beginning of the Second Great War, Dowling's troops bore the brunt of Operation Blackbeard. Undermanned and underarmed, his men were forced to retreat north during the summer of 1941. Dowling was able to protect his flanks, but that was one of the few things that went right in the campaign. Despite valiant fighting by troops that were trapped in Columbus and along several major rivers, the U.S. troops failed to halt the Confederate offensive. In Sandusky, the last city before Lake Erie, the C.S.A. succeeded in cutting its northern neighbor in half.

Because of the sheer swiftness of the American defeat, Dowling was investigated by the U.S. Joint Comittee on the Conduct of the War. For its own reasons, the War Department provided Dowling with damning evidence that Congress had failed to adequately provide the necessary funding for modern weapons and supplies. Despite being released by a shaken Committee, Dowling was placed behind a desk for a while. But when the U.S. began to prepare a counter-offensive into Virginia, General Daniel MacArthur offered Dowling the position of corps commander. Dowling accepted, but he began to feel that he was simply serving under a new version of Custer. Dowling was constantly trying to convince MacArthur against striking the Confederates head-on, and went behind his superior's back to derail a proposed landing on Virginia's east coast. The ultimate example of criminal stupidity came in spring 1942: the Battles of Fredericksburg succeeded in gaining little ground and cost thousands of U.S. lives.

After Fredericksburg, Dowling learned that the Confederates were redeploying men from Virginia in preparation for a major offensive elsewhere. Because of this and his proven competance in command, Dowling received a promotion to Major General and was given a command of the Eleventh Army near Texas. The Eleventh army was little more than a division and a half's worth of men, but they still outnumbered the single Confederate division opposing them. During the autumn, while Irving Morrell was destroying the C.S. army in Pittsburgh, Dowling commenced his own drive into west Texas.

By early 1943, Dowling had learned of Camp Determination. While he realized that capturing the camp would be good propaganda for the U.S. war-effort, Dowling wanted to capture it for humanitarian reasons. Dowling, like most citizens of the U.S., was generally indifferent to the plight of blacks on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. However, concrete evidence of the Black Holocaust galvanized him, and he made capture of the camp his primary goal in Texas. By the end of 1943, he had regained the territory to reconstitute Houston for the U.S., and had overrun Camp Determination. Dowling made a point of bringing in leading citizens of the nearby town of Snyder to show them what their government had done.