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336 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2023
Appleton Oaksmith was a ship's captain and is a complex character, on whom we don't quite get a handle. For example, during the Civil War he became a Confederate blockade-runner, delivering goods in and out of the Confederacy. Yet after the war, he became a state legislator who was "ardently anti-Klan and in favor of protecting the rights of ex-slaves." What was his true attitude toward Black people? Who knows?
The main event of his life and of this book is the time that he fits out a ship purportedly as a whaling vessel and is arrested because the ship appears to be a slaver, intended to illegally transport people from Africa to the United States as slaves. He is put on trial and is convicted on the basis of circumstantial evidence. Then the jailbreak of the subtitle occurs. Was Oaksmith guilty? We will never know.
Shipwrecked has apparent tangents, such as the story of Nathaniel Gordon, who was hanged for slave trading after Lincoln refused to pardon him. But, as we read, we learn that these apparent tangents tie in with Oaksmith's story. Shipwrecked is to be recommended as enjoyable and as something different.