The ensuing multicultural and multi-racial relationships are for the avid reader of historical fiction who is open to learning new facts about the diversity that existed as the nation moved toward a defining cataclysm—that brought about, at some considerable expense, human suffering, destruction of infrastructure, and a more refined view of the Founding Documents. There were lasting contributions from people who are often forgotten in history books.

Since the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, very few in the coastal communities dependent on trade believed war was the correct answer to the long-standing problem of international and intrastate slavery. Of course, many shades of gray existed on both sides of the American Tragedy about to unfold, and nobody could claim their hands were clean because of the interlocking economies of the North and South.

The picture of intense abolitionists at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, the Abenakis, the Acadians, the Congregationalists, and the Quakers is routinely left out of our classroom treatment of the American Civil War. To address this, the story ' The Tide Waits for No Woman ' reflects fictional characters in historically accurate settings, interacting with real-life individuals in authentic political, military, and social contexts. The lens provided here is one of the ordinary folks trying to...