Captain Rebel

by Frank Yerby

First published 1956

Amazon

3.6(75)

Tyler Meredith is a Southern shipowner who treats the Civil War less as a sacred cause than as a dangerous commercial opportunity. Running fast vessels through the Union blockade, he carries guns, medicine and supplies for the Confederacy while maintaining a fortune and relationships on both sides of the Atlantic. His refusal to conform to planter ideals makes him both useful and suspect in wartime New Orleans.
The novel centres on the maritime logistics of the Confederacy and the tightening Union blockade, where speed, navigation, finance and nerve determine whether a voyage ends in profit or capture. Benjamin Franklin Butler’s occupation of New Orleans supplies a real political and military pressure point. Yerby sets Tyler’s private rebellion against the larger collapse of the slaveholding South, complicating the conventional heroic image of the Confederate blockade runner.