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Book Reviews These are some reviews from a recent issue of
The Civil War News:
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Allegiances
by Charles Davis.
Novel. Bibliography, 378 pp., 2002. Merriman Press Inc., 21 Kercheval Ave., Suite 270, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI 48236, $24.95 plus shipping.
Allegiances pretty much has it all—romance, intrigue, adventure, treason, and the heartache of a young man torn between his Southern homeland and his loyalty to the United State government. The volume has an interesting slant, being told in the first person by Lt. Jonathan Wade, as it tells the story of the first year of the Civil War on the high seas. Wade begins his naval career in New York where he helped build the 170-ton schooner yacht America. Able to get a berth aboard the schooner, young Wade sails with her to the United Kingdom where the America takes part in the 100 Guinea Cup regatta (today known as the America’s Cup). While in England love is found and lost, and Wade sails back to the United States where he enters the U.S. Naval Academy. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Wade decides to remain loyal to his native state of Virginia and becomes a lieutenant in the Confederate States Navy, ultimately taking command of the Camilla, amazingly the renamed America. The Camilla becomes a packet/blockade runner, sailing gold and ambassadors to England and goods back to Charleston, with various stops in Bermuda and Jacksonville along the way. On one return trip from the Continent, one passenger, a seductive French actress sympathetic to the Southern cause, captures Wade’s heart. In Bermuda, Wade becomes an unwitting participant in the infamous Trent Affair. Back in Charleston he once again finds his first true love, and is left by the second. After scuttling the Camilla in Dunn’s Creek in Florida in March 1862, Wade falls ill and is captured by the federals. Through all this he is also charged with treason by the Confederate government. All, however, ends well when his French femme fatale finds him on a hospital ship and nurses him back to health. Then the federal government grants him a pardon, and the book ends with marriage in the offing. The dust jacket blurb indicates that the author is an avid sailor so I will not question him on his nautical descriptions other than to question a term or two which I think are modern, civvies for civilian cloths for example. A few historical errors include the mention of Gideon Welles who was not the Secretary of the Navy in 1851, (p. 3), William A. Graham was. The wording on pages 170-171 makes it sound like the original name of Hull (p. 290) was the CSS Alabama rather than the actual name Enrica. Finally, the designer and builder of the USS Monitor’s name was spelled Ericsson, not Erricson, (p. 323). Despite these minor quips this is a very good book. The author has an extensive bibliography, which is unusual for a novel. Of course the best source for that list would have been the actual log of the America; unfortunately it disappeared long ago. Fast paced and well written, I would recommend Allegiances for those interested in sailing and some not often covered incidents of the first year of the Civil War.
Blake Magner
Blake Magner is the Book Review Editor of The Civil War News. He makes his liv-ing as an editor, writer, car-tographer and photographer of Civil War history.
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