Shipwrecked
A True Civil War Story of Mutinies, Jailbreaks, Blockade-Running, and the Slave Trade
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $28.99
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- $28.99
Publisher Description
From the New York Times: "The astonishing stories in Shipwrecked ... [offer] a fresh perspective on the mess of pitched emotions and politics in a nation at war over slavery."
Historian Jonathan W. White tells the riveting story of Appleton Oaksmith, a swashbuckling sea captain whose life intersected with some of the most important moments, movements, and individuals of the mid-19th century, from the California Gold Rush, filibustering schemes in Nicaragua, Cuban liberation, and the Civil War and Reconstruction. Most importantly, the book depicts the extraordinary lengths the Lincoln Administration went to destroy the illegal trans-Atlantic slave trade. Using Oaksmith’s case as a lens, White takes readers into the murky underworld of New York City, where federal marshals plied the docks in lower Manhattan in search of evidence of slave trading. Once they suspected Oaksmith, federal authorities had him arrested and convicted, but in 1862 he escaped from jail and became a Confederate blockade-runner in Havana. The Lincoln Administration tried to have him kidnapped in violation of international law, but the attempt was foiled. Always claiming innocence, Oaksmith spent the next decade in exile until he received a presidential pardon from U.S. Grant, at which point he moved to North Carolina and became an anti-Klan politician. Through a remarkable, fast-paced story, this book will give readers a new perspective on slavery and shifting political alliances during the turbulent Civil War Era.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
White (A House Built by Slaves), a professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University, provides a finely grained biography of sea captain Appleton Oaksmith (1828–1887). A "seafarer, poet, jailbird, convict, escapee, exile, and expat, " Oaksmith's life "touched some of the most important moments in nineteenth-century American history," writes White, such as first-wave feminism, the Atlantic slave trade, and Southern schemes to seize Cuba and Nicaragua. His parents, Seba Smith and Elizabeth Oakes Smith, were notable literary figures in New York City, and Elizabeth, who is as much the subject of the book as her son, was "a leader in the women's rights movement." A life at sea brought Oaksmith little financial success; accused of fitting out his ship as a slaver, in 1861 he was imprisoned in Fort Lafayette in New York Harbor. Oaksmith—who maintained his innocence—escaped and sailed to Cuba. He eventually returned to the U.S. and was elected to the North Carolina general assembly. Evocative and well researched, White's narrative draws ample evidence from archival sources, including the journals Oaksmith kept at sea. It's an immersive account of a man who was not always likable but whose turbulent life sheds light on the nooks and crannies of the Civil War era.
