The Cotton Run

Captain Joshua Denning is a veteran of the nighttime cotton runs through the Union blockaders off Cape Fear, near Wilmington, in 1863. During a confrontation on the high seas outside Nassau, Denning clashes with an old adversary, Captain Robert Carlisle, from his days at Annapolis Navy Academy ten years before. The next time they meet, when Denning takes on one final blockade run, the greatest shipment of them all, only one will be victorious... But Denning becomes distracted by Marie Keating, a beautiful, French-born woman who runs an organization that's supplying clothing to Robert E. Lee's army at the front. The Cotton Run gives a different insight into the American Civil War, a story of love, hate, greed, and double-dealing that takes us deep into the exciting and dangerous world of naval combat, and the controversial blockade-running trade through the strategic Confederate port of Wilmington, North Carolina. [65000 words]