On the 8th of October 1871, Chicago was visited by what newspapers of the day often referred to as, the "Fire Fiend". Over a period of approximately 30 hours; 2,100 acres containing 17,450 buildings were destroyed, 98,500 people were made homeless, and at least 300 people were killed. The total economic loss due to the fire was estimated to be $290,000,000.00. October 8, 2023, marks the 152nd anniversary of this event. The Great Chicago Fire: The Southern Rationale, which is fully documented, looks at this event from a perspective that it never has been before.

The fire is generally viewed as if it took place within a historical vacuum, completely devoid of any outside influences, however, nothing could be further from the truth. Few that were present in the city at the time had any doubt as to its cause, almost all believed that it had an incendiary origin. Furthermore, it was not just thought to be the work of "an incendiary" but rather "incendiaries." There is absolutely no mystery as to why people would have believed such a thing because, that is precisely what the evidence suggests did occur.

Part I of The Great Chicago Fire: The Southern Rationale, looks at the fire, how it spread, its aftermath and subsequent investigation. It then finishes up with what one newspaper headline called the "Discovery of an Infernal Plot to Start Another Conflagration". According to the investigation's official report, the fire, like the Almighty himself ascending into the sky upon the cherubim, was carried aloft across the city "literally, on the wings of the wind". While the fire may have been biblical in proportion, that was the extent of its divine nature, everything else about it, from start to finish, was strictly anthropogenic.

Part II, of the book it takes a step back and looks at this event in the historical context in which it actually did take place, and the result is quite surprising.

Major players in this historical whodunit include former President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, Jacob Thompson of the Confederate Secret Service, generals; Jubal Early, P.G.T. Beauregard and Nathan Bedford Forrest from the South. Northern participants include President Ulysses S. Grant, Secretary of War W.W. Belnap, generals, Philip Sheridan, William T. Sherman along with Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and elements of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment.