Jake Featherston

Jake Featherston was a soldier in an alternate First World War taking place in a world where the Confederacy won the American Civil War. Featherston was a sergeant in the First Richmond Howitzers, fighting against the U.S and a black Socialist uprising (the slaves in the CSA had been gradually freed in the 1880s, but were still second-class citizens). During the war, the Featherston was blamed for the death of Confederate Captain Jeb Stuart III, grandson of famous Confederate General Jeb Stuart, and was kept from promotion. This angered Featherston greatly and, after the war, Featherston started to blame the Confederacy's defeat (and subsequent Treaty of Versailles-like conditions, including crippling reparations) on the black uprising and the aristocratic Confederate ruling class. Featherston joined the Freedom Party after the war. Featherston quickly took over leadership of the Freedom Party, and, after some setbacks in the 1920s, was elected president in 1934, and quickly began a massive military buildup, culminating in a invasion of the US in 1941, taking control of all of Ohio, effectively cutting the US in half, before driving east to Pittsburg, where the Confederate advance was halted. The US launched a counter attack, eventually taking Atlanta. In a last ditch attempt to secure victory, Featherston ordered an atomic bomb constructed and smuggled into Philadelphia, the alternate US capital. Amazingly, the scheme was a partial success, with the bomb being sucessfully built and smuggled into the city. The bomb, however, detonated on the outskirts of town, not directly impacting the executive residence or Congress.

Shortly afterwards, the US retaliated, detonating an atomic bomb in Featherston's suspected hideout in Newport News, North Carolina. Featherston, however, escaped the blast and flew to Georgia, only to be shot by a black resistance man.