Then call us Rebels if you will we glory in the name, for bending under unjust laws and swearing faith to an unjust cause, we count as greater shame. -- Richmond Daily Dispatch, May 12, 1862

April 12, 1861. With one jerk of a lanyard, one shell arching into the sky, years of tension explode into civil war. And for those men who do not know in which direction their loyalty calls them, it is a time for decisions. Such a one is Lieutenant Samuel Bowater, an officer of the U.S. Navy and a native of Charleston, South Carolina.

Hard-pressed to abandon the oath he swore to the United States, but unable to fight against his home state, Bowater accepts a commission in the nascent Confederate Navy, where captains who once strode the quarterdecks of the world's most powerful ships are now assuming command of paddle wheelers and towboats. Taking charge of the armed tugboat Cape Fear, and then the ironclad Yazoo River, Bowater and his men, against overwhelming odds, engage in the waterborne fight for Southern independence.

Author: James L. Nelson
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 04/13/2004
Pages: 432
Weight: 0.82lbs
Size: 8.06h x 5.29w x 1.07d
ISBN: 9780060959050
Perennial Edition

About the Author
Nelson, James L.: -

James L. Nelson has served as a seaman, rigger, boatswain, and officer on a number of sailing vessels. He is the author of By Force of Arms, The Maddest Idea, The Continental Risque, Lords of the Ocean, and All the Brave Fellows -- the five books of his Revolution at Sea Saga. -- as well as The Guardship: Book One of the Brethren of the Coast. He lives with his wife and children in Harpswell, Maine.