Yankee North vs Rebel South

Civil War chess set on Amazon, one of over a dozen available at various price points even so high as thousands of dollars, but not through Prime, only two regular common Civil War sets, and nothing about them actually collectable.

Amazon [civil war chess sets] 

Here is their most popular available through Prime, just $60.00 and it is rated 4 stars. 

One is a bit classy and the other a bit garish. Man, what a tough decision.  

That's all you're having through Prime.

But there are still plenty others, pewter marked down to $197.00 from $235.00, extra large chessmen 4.5 inches tall. Only $150.00 and 5 stars reviews. I would get this one.

Because bigger is always better.

The Italians will sell you a set with its own table for $3,375.00, or a large set with high gloss marble-looking blue and tan board for $1,225.00.  Koehler Group will sell you a set for $8,183.00 but it is unclear on Amazon what makes it worth that much. Made out of glass. Nobody's reviewed it because nobody bought it, most likely. 

On the results page Amazon finds fit to show me 150th anniversary USPS forever stamps, novelty Civil War currency. Four good solid pages of chess set results, the rest peters out to books. 

And the whole time I'm imagining people actually playing these games. I have such a chess set of medieval knights and castles for rooks, knights on horses, people as bishops that never gets played. Not even once. They're plastic and unweighted. Not fun to handle. And I realized, who'd want to play Civil War chess when you know in advance which side wins every time? 

The Hennigans were southern as possible. They used to joke about me being yankee with my strange yankee ways even though none of us identified with any north/south differences. It was funny. Gary could not care less about the Civil War, race relations, all the things projected onto southerners Gary is utterly devoid, but he does love his region and with good reason. So it's doubly funny when he deigns to wallow in southern resentment and purposefully get everything wrong. He's being funny. He'd raise his fist and shake his voice in exaggerated southern accent, "The North will r-i-i-i-i-i-s-e again!"