In an alternate-reality world where the American Civil War lasted ten years, technology has advanced rapidly. A decade after the guns of the South were silenced, the embers of war still burn white hot. English Canada and French Mexico still snarl at the Union, but a new terror faces the country. Former army major John Morton, now a museum professor, is recruited by his old army comrade, now a Catholic priest, to find missing parishioners. As they will learn, the solution to the riddle is only the start of a cross-county adventure. Recruited to join an eclectic undercover government team, Civil War veteran Morton joins a priest, a beautiful female assassin, a black tinker, and an orphaned girl in the race to find a way to preserve the Union. Can Morton survive long enough to stop a pair of mad renegade scientists hell-bent on the destruction of the Union? The Ratten Expedition unfurls a steampunk adventure that begins in the East and travels to the Wild West.