Blackwater

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>- Abraham Lincoln to Horace Greeley</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Washington August 22 1862.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>So the war was not primarily about slavery. Lincoln was interested in preserving the union so that he would continue to have the financial resources of the South to run the government.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Blackwater also tells the story of John Geoghegan and how he became a successful blockade runner out of Pensacola Bay. It's the story of Maria Moreno the Spanish beauty whom John loves and almost loses. Further it is the story of John's friend Ben Jernigan who is engaged to French-educated Amanda Rucker. Ben has no interest in the war so he hides in the Yellow River swamp to avoid conscription. But he finds himself drawn out to help his friend Caleb a slave who has killed in self-defense. He gets Amanda and her friends out of Milton Florida and finally leaves the Southern ruins with John and his friends on his ship the Carolina.</span></p><p></p>