Richard K. Perkins

​

In April of 1861, Clifford Anderson crossed Rebel lines northbound. He was kept from his journey home to his Abby--ten months into believing she was a young widow--because the Federal officers found his knowledge of the Carolina Sounds compelling and of immediate use to planners. So, a militia brigade commander requisitioned him, like a wagon, a teamster, or a ship, to help put down the Rebellion before a civil war erupted.

 

Very few in the coastal communities dependent on trade believed war was the correct answer to the long-standing problem since the Declaration of Independence. Of course, many shades of gray existed on both sides of the American Tragedy about to unfold.

​

David Campbell was the real captain of a coastal schooner from Maine shipwrecked on the remotest part of the Outer Banks at almost the same time (July 1860) and place (Ocracoke Island) as fictional Clifford in The Running Fix.