final war between the United States and Confederate States ends officially on July 14, 1944, at 6:01 p.m after an unconditional surrender is signed between General Irving Morrell and the new (and outgoing) Confederate President Don Partridge. The United States commences a full occupation of the former Confederate States and Canada, though Texas apparently remains independent but still hosts American soldiers in its territory. For the first time in 83 years, the Stars and Stripes flies over the whole of the pre-1861 United States territory, and Americans express their determination never to let go of the former Confederate territories, after Featherston came so close to crushing them. Meanwhile, American forces uncover the true horror of the genocide, known in the story as "Population Reductions," which the Confederate government has been perpetrating on its black population, discovering the concentration camps being used in their extermination. The United States government subsequently initiates crimes against humanity trials. Among those found guilty and hanged for participating in or inciting the black Holocaust are Confederate Attorney-General Ferdinand Koenig, Freedom Party chief propagandist Saul Goldman, Camp Determination commandant Jefferson Pinkard, and his aide Vern Green. The Confederates are bitter and far from being reconciled to their fate; they constantly attack the occupying US forces, despite grim retaliations including the execution of civilian hostages. Though outlawed, the Freedom Party is still very much an active underground force. Moreover, the United States itself - while dissolving the Confederate government and declaring its firm intention never to let it rise again - refrains from any formal annexation and (re)admitting Southern states back into the Union (with the exception of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Houston, which once again split from Texas), since any free elections would likely fill Congress with the United States' most staunch enemies. Rather, the former Confederate territories are left in the same legal limbo in which Canada has been since 1917,(being offered neither independence nor civil liberties) and kept under an open-ended, harsh military rule. Despite the enormous victory won by the US, the war has not truly ended, but rather changed its form. To their chagrin, most of the soldiers and sailors conscripted "for the duration" are not discharged but set to occupation duty. The US is faced with the daunting task of keeping under indefinite harsh military occupation a vast satellite bloc with hostile populations, with the conquered Confederate Nations being added to the previously