BARSTOW In a Barstow authors hypothetical history, the Civil War is still unfinished business.

Comes the Southern Revolution, written by Barstow resident James Elstad, mixes history and futurism in a new twist on the war.

When James Elstad a veteran of the Marine Corps and California National Guard visited Petersburg National Battlefield in Virginia with a Virginia National Guard batallion from a nearby base, troops described the battle that took place there between Confederate soldiers and the federals.

The tone of their voice was, We would if we could, Elstad said, and their seemingly bitter tone stayed with him.

That got him thinking just what that would look like and sparked his story of a cocky southern Army National Guard General who relaunches the Civil War in 2016.

This is possible, Elstad said, because the general is a direct descendant of Gen. Robert E. Lee, who led the Confederate Army, and in the story Lee installed a group of 12 friends to raise his descendants and ensure their eventual return to hostilities.

He said he came up with the idea in 1996 and wrote a draft. He showed it to his wife, who praised the storyline, but not his writing style, he said.

In 2009, Elstad joined the High Desert chapter of the California Writers Club, which meets at the Newton T. Bass Library in Apple Valley. Each month, members gather at the library and critique each others work.

I went and took my work to their critique group and they helped me work through it, Elstad said. Its now half the size it was before, and its much better.

While his work might have some parallels to the Tea Party movement, with conservatives lingering distrust of the federal government, Elstad said he did not intend the book as an overt political statement.

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Book imagines a future Civil War