Thieves of Mercy: A Novel of the Civil War at SeaHaving survived the bloody Battle of New Orleans and the loss of their ironclad Yazoo River, captain Samuel Bowater, engineer Hieronymus Taylor, and the survivors of their crew are given new orders -- take command of an ironclad warship being built in Memphis, Tennessee. Bowater and his men take passage upriver from "Mississippi" Mike Sullivan, one of the wild, undisciplined captains of the River Defense Squadron, only to find, on their arrival, that their ship is not even half built and the enemy is closing fast. Against their better judgment, Bowater and crew join forces with the mercurial Sullivan on board his ad hoc river gunship the General Page. Outnumbered and outgunned, the Confederates once again fling themselves bravely at the overwhelming power of the Yankee invaders. The deadly back-and-forth fight along the Mississippi ends at last in the massive naval battle of Memphis, and the near-suicidal attempt by the Confederates to hold back the Northern flood. Filled with wild characters and heart-pounding action, and set against the bold backdrop of the Civil War, Thieves of Mercy is a worthy successor to the W. Y. Boyd Award-winning novel Glory in the Name, the book Bernard Cornwell lauded as "by far, the best Civil War novel I've read." |
From inside the book
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... past the forts and the smattering of Confederate ships defending the river below the city. Now Farragut was probing upriver, but the farther north he came, and the more the water level continued to fall, the more unwieldy his fleet ...
... past Bowater, into the thick fog of tobacco smoke in the salon. “All right, you sons of bitches, let's get this bucket under way! Come on, go!” The riverboat men, who looked as if they would never obey any authority, obeyed Mississippi ...
... past the barge. A man was standing there, on the far side, on the edge of the wall. He was just visible in the light of the lantern he held in his hand. “Pickin up the barge, here!” Sullivan shouted back. “Like hell! Who are you?” “Got ...
... past hour. I suppose I got curious.” “Oh. Well . . . with all the rumors . . . and such . . . of the Yankees coming, I thought perhaps I should go back to Culpepper . . . be with my family . . . my mother. You understand.” Molly took a ...
... past two weeks flow out and soak into Molly's dress. Then, as she felt the tears ebb, another thought vied for her attention. Did she say “we”? Molly, it turned out, did say “we,” and she meant “we,” literally. She parried Wendy's ...
Contents
Section 26 | 263 |
Section 27 | 274 |
Section 28 | 283 |
Section 29 | 301 |
Section 30 | 316 |
Section 31 | 323 |
Section 32 | 328 |
Section 33 | 330 |
Section 9 | 74 |
Section 10 | 88 |
Section 11 | 107 |
Section 12 | 116 |
Section 13 | 119 |
Section 14 | 127 |
Section 15 | 131 |
Section 16 | 149 |
Section 17 | 163 |
Section 18 | 178 |
Section 19 | 197 |
Section 20 | 204 |
Section 21 | 214 |
Section 22 | 228 |
Section 23 | 237 |
Section 24 | 248 |
Section 25 | 256 |
Section 34 | 348 |
Section 35 | 355 |
Section 36 | 363 |
Section 37 | 381 |
Section 38 | 386 |
Section 39 | 399 |
Section 40 | 403 |
Section 41 | 408 |
Section 42 | 420 |
Section 43 | 424 |
Section 44 | 438 |
Section 45 | 441 |
Section 46 | 447 |
Section 47 | 452 |
Section 48 | 455 |
Section 49 | 465 |
Other editions - View all
Thieves Of Mercy: a stunning and heart-pounding novel of naval adventure set ... James Nelson No preview available - 2015 |