Will O’ the Wisp: Madness, War, and Recompense.

The tragedy of the Civil War is experienced through the eyes and actions of George Alfred Trenholm, self-made shipping magnate, king of the cotton cartel and Treasury Secretary of the Confederacy and Jack Whitesides Holmes, Trenholm’s brother-in-law, ship captain and most elusive of all Civil War blockade runners. The story begins amidst secession madness that took root in Charleston. Trenholm and Holmes are Southern nationalists, but their experienced understanding of shipping and international business realities makes them skeptical regarding secession success. Unfortunately, the economics of the slave-driven plantation economy and the dominating planter elite sold fevered secession to a populace with virtually nothing to gain and everything to lose.

 

With war’s onset, Captain Jack Holmes audaciously befuddles the Union blockade helping sustain Charleston and the Confederate war effort. The Will O’ the Wisp is Captain Holmes’ ship, named after the mysterious marsh lights well-known to sailors along the Low Country coast. Transshipment of Sea Island King Cotton and Confederate munitions between Charleston and Nassau becomes a daring and dangerous game of cat and mouse with blockading Federal warships. Simultaneously, George Trenholm becomes the banker for Confederate funds in Europe and the Confederacy’s last Secretary of the Treasury. Once it becomes apparent that the cause is lost, and that retribution will be punishing, George and Jack conspire to steal the Confederate gold as the C.S.A. treasure train leaves a burning Richmond. They flee to South Carolina avoiding Sherman’s cavalry, desperate refugees, and dangerous highwaymen. 

 

George and Jack spirit the treasure out of the country on the Wisp, cleverly launder the stolen gold and return it to Charleston to help the South survive a humbling post-war reconstruction. Trenholm and Jack struggle to atone for their roles in a disastrous and treasonous rebellion.