Two Captains from Carolina

by Simpson, Bland

• ISBN13: 9780807835852
• ISBN10: 0807835854
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-09-15
• Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr

Summary

In Two Captains from Carolina, Bland Simpson twines together the lives of two accomplished nineteenth-century mariners from North Carolina--one African American, one Irish American. Though Moses Grandy (ca. 1791- ca. 1850) and John Newland Maffitt Jr. (1819-1886) never met, their stories bring to vivid life the saga of race and maritime culture in the antebellum and Civil War-era South. With his lyrical prose and inimitable voice, Bland Simpson offers readers a grand tale of the striving human spirit and the great divide that nearly sundered the nation. Grandy, born a slave, captained freight boats on the Dismal Swamp Canal and bought his freedom three times before he finally gained it. He became involved in Boston abolitionism and ultimately appeared before the General Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1843. As a child, Maffitt was sent from his North Carolina home to a northern boarding school, and at thirteen he was appointed midshipman in the U.S. Navy, where he had a distinguished career. After North Carolina seceded from the Union, he enlisted in the Confederate navy and became a legendary blockade runner and raider. Both Grandy and Maffitt made names for themselves as they navigated very different routes through the turbulent waters of antebellum America.

Table of Contents

Two Captains	p. xiii
Grandy, Early 1800s-Circa 1820	p. 1
The Wind That Blows, 1830	p. 29
Maffitt, 1819-1834	p. 31
Grandy, Early 1820S-1832	p. 40
The Wind That Blows, 1830	p. 63
Grandy and Maffitt, Late 1834	p. 65
Maffitt, 1834-1842	p. 68
Grandy, Mid-1830s-1842	p. 80
The Wind That Blows, 1840	p. 87
Maffitt, Early 1840s-Early 1850s	p. 89
The Wind That Blows, 1850	p. 101
Maffitt, 1851-1861	p. 103
Grandy, August 1842-January 1844	p. 122
Maffitt, May 1861-January 1869	p. 131
Epilogue	p. 167
Two Captains from Carolina: A Chronology	p. 169
Selected Sources	p. 179
Acknowledgments	p. 183
Illustration Credits	p. 185
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