General Shegog's journal

Excerpt #1

Fire! Fire! Oh, Fie!

Draw their fire! Suck them tumbling and screaming into the dank, green earth, where the redness and blackness of death awaits them in a fire storm of bloody rebuke! Quench their savagery with a taste of bitter hell!

Lure them underground to steal their riches and spark them with a flare from the cannon's devilish grin. A shortcut to hell. I am no man's slave, but a servant to dastardly passions.

Biding in the bunker below my abode, I plot my takeover daily. One gets comfortable nestled in the dirty womb of the planet. I could curl up and die in a place like this.

Excerpt #2

The beasts of academies lay eggs in the belly of the world. I will lie in waiting till the serpents come to scour our lands and take with them their spoils and crimes.

Ignatius, my fellow, hand me a shovel so that I too can carve the rutted wastelands into devious design. Is it not right to salvage one's forces and fortunes by any means necessary?

Only a weak, foolish man would serve this Army one sordid second longer. I mean my victories for myself, my men, my compatriots.

For there is no nation but one’s own, and as long pitiful men wage their wars on the Earth, I will assemble my kingdom below it!

Excerpt #3

The Confederacy is dead, dying. The Union is a lost cause. This experiment failed.

None of us are worthy of all that we have attained. I must bury it, and all he who came here to die with me.

Black, white — sinners, enlightened. Good night!