(ISBN 0-9723240-1-1 • $17.95 • 139 pgs • Trim Size 8 1/2 x 11 • Trade Paperback • Illustrated in Color / B&W)

The ONLY guide book you’ll need to see the best historic sites and attractions in North Carolina’s five southeastern coastal counties. Covering New Hanover, Brunswick, Pender, Columbus and Bladen Counties, this book is chock full of color and historic photos of the places where history was made in the Lower Cape Fear. Over 300 images, plus write-ups on each site that go way beyond the usual tourist brochure. It also has contact info, hours of operation, ferry schedules, a calendar of yearly special events, festivals and reenactments - all presented in an easy to use, color-keyed format that makes it a must-have for visitors and locals alike!

(ISBN 978-0-9814603-0-7 • $17.95 • 219 pages • trade paperback • illustrated)

He was the partisan who ran circles around the feared Banastre Tarleton, using guerilla tactics to cripple the British effort to subdue the Carolinas. Hiding out in the Low Country swamps, striking when and where he was least expected, Francis Marion was one of the most colorful heroes of the American Revolution. In this memoir, written by a man who served with Marion, you’ll meet the real Swamp Fox. So many stories about Francis Marion’s exploits have been embellished to the point of fiction. In this book, William Dobein James sets the record straight. Illustrated for the first time, James’ 1821 account of this icon of America’s war for independence is a classic that preserves the memory of a man who was small in stature, but who became a giant of his nation’s history.

(ISBN 978-0-9786248-3-5 • $12.95 • 125 pages • Trade paperback • Trim size 6x9 • Illustrated)

Major General Joseph Dolson Cox had plenty to do as a Union Army commander engaged in fighting along the Mississippi River, but when Ulysses S. Grant needed him and his men in North Carolina, he immediately headed east By train and by ship, Cox’s command made an amazingly fast movement to the Cape Fear, where just weeks before Union and Confederate soldiers, sailors, and marines had fought a desperate battle for Fort Fisher, guarding the last open port of the Confederacy at Wilmington. Now the fort was in Yankee hands, but Fort Anderson still remained upriver as one final obstacle to the fall of the port Robert E. Lee depended on. It fell to Jacob D. Cox and Adelbert Ames to eliminate Fort Anderson as they led the western element of a two-pronged assault on Wilmington. From there, Cox witnessed virtually every remaining battle in North Carolina during the Civil War. Goldsborough, Wise Forks, Kinston, Bentonville, Averasborough and Bennett Place - Cox either fought in or was close by every major clash of arms fought in North Carolina in 1865. Cox died before his memoir was published in 1900. When it was, his account of his Civil War service made for an important addition to the story of the war from someone who played a pivotal role in it. In this book, editor Jack E. Fryar, Jr. has excerpted from Cox’s memoir the portions that deal with his extensive service in North Carolina in the closing months of the war. Cox tells about more than just the battles fought. He also tells of the men on both sides who made history in one of the most important dramas ever acted out in this country. With letters and personal insight into the issues and complexities of the war, Jacob Cox paints a vivid portrait of the struggles not just to win the fights, but to usher in a peace that would see the country whole again. This well illustrated volume will be a welcome addition to any student of the Civil War and North Carolina’s role in our nation’s fiercest crucible by fire.

(ISBN 978-0-9786248-6-6 • $18.95 • 219 pages • Trim Size 6” x 9” • Trade Paperback)

In times past, if a woman found herself suddenly on her own, there were very few options for her to make her way in the world. Widowhood, abandonment and other circumstances often forced women to turn to one of the only respectable avenues of income available to them - opening a boarding house. In this unique volume, Alice Sink and Nickie Doyal tell the stories of resourceful women across North Carolina who opened their homes to strangers out of necessity, and in the process created a kind of family for people who were of no blood relations. Featuring boarding houses from the colonial period through modern times, stretching across the entire state, it’s North Carolina history from a new and different perspective! Illustrated with great pictures and recipes that would have graced the boarding house table.

(ISBN 0-9785265-1-1 • $19.95 • 290 pgs • Trim Size 8” x 5” • Trade Paperback)

Click to watch interview

Suzanne Adair’s debut novel is set in the Southern theater of operations during the American Revolution. Sophie Barton is content with her life on Georgia’s frontier, helping her father run the Alston newspaper and enjoying the attentions of the commander of the local British garrison. But her father, Will St. James, has sided with the rebels in the growing conflict with Great Britain. When he disappears, Sophie assumes the worst. When evidence indicates Will may still be alive and on his way to Florida, Sophie and a few friends take off in pursuit. And they, in turn, are pursued by suspicious redcoats intent on catching the suspected spies. From frontier Georgia to St. Augustine, to Havana and ultimately to South Carolina, this first novel is a thrilling work of historical suspense!

(ISBN 0-9785265-3-8 • $19.95 • 354 pages • Trim Size 5” x 8” • Trade Paperback)

Click to watch interview

With her mother on the run, suspected of being a traitor, and with a new baby on the way, 1780 is shaping up to be a tough year for Betsy Sheridan. Things become even more dangerous for the seventeen-year-old when she discovers the father of her child has been posing as a loyalist to smuggle information to patriot spies in the Carolinas. Then Betsy learns that the man she has always thought to be her own father is not. Her real father was blacksmith Mathias Hale. He and Betsy’s mother, Sophie Barton, are reputed to be hiding with Indians in South Carolina. Betsy and her husband, Clark, travel to the Georgia frontier town of Alton to pick up the trail of her fugitive parents, only to come under the suspicions of British Lieutenant Dunstan Fairfax. Mathias and Sophie had escaped Fairfax’s clutches earlier, and now the brutal redcoat sees a way to exact a measure of revenge through Betsy and Clark. Filled with action and suspense that climaxes at the Battle of Camden, The Blacksmith’s Daughter is the second book following the exploits of Sophie Barton and her family as they are forced to choose sides in the war for American independence.

(ISBN 0-9786248-4-X • $15.95 • 199 pgs • Trade Paperback)

From the very beginnings, America has been a fertile hunting ground for high seas rogues willing to take what they wanted when they found it. Even great men like Christopher Columbus and Sir Francis Drake took a turn as sea robbers. In later years, names like Blackbeard, Low, Bonnet and Kidd struck terror into the hearts of merchant captains, sailors and the civilian passengers they carried across the waves. North Carolina’s 300 miles of coastline, dotted with secluded coves and inlets, became a favorite haunt of pirates and buccaneers. In this book, first published in 1898, author Frank R. Stockton tells the stories of the villains who plundered the high seas and plagued America’s coasts during our country’s early years. With original illustrations enhanced by additional maps and pictures, this new rendition of a classic book about the men and women who sailed under the Black Flag is sure to please!  

(ISBN 0-9723240-5-4 • $34.95 • 732 pgs • Trim Size 6x9 • Trade Paperback • Illustrated)

Blockade runner, philanthopist, business man and historian - James Sprunt was all of that and more. He once owned the famous Orton Plantation and Wilmington’s Dudley Mansion. His family cotton business was the largest exporter of the fiber in the world. He was also a life-long lover of the Cape Fear. This book is Sprunt’s signature history of the place that he loved more than any other. Originally published in 1916, it is still the yardstick by which all other histories of the Cape Fear are measured. If you love the Cape Fear and North Carolina’s history, then you absolutely must have this unique and all-encompassing history of the region!

(ISBN 0-9723240-9-7 • $17.95 • 200 pgs • Trim Size 9 1/4 x 6 1/4 • Trade Paperback • Illustrated)

There is a reason sailors call the waters off the North Carolina coast “Cape Fear” and “Graveyard of the Atlantic.” In this reprint of a book first published in 1920, celebrated North Carolina historian James Sprunt tells the stories of the ships and men that met their doom in the pitiless depths off Tar Heel beaches. Illustrated for the first time,this account of the dangerous blockade running trade - which the author knew from firsthand experience - is a riveting tale that has the power to thrill even today.

(ISBN 0-9785265-0-3 • $21.00 • 489 pgs • Trim Size 8” x 5” • Trade Paperback)

Hailed by some critics even today as the best novel of the American Revolution ever written, James Boyd’s 1925 masterpiece tells the story of a young man’s journey from the backwoods of the Albemarle to the quarterdeck of the Bonhomme Richard, in John Paul Jones’ epic fight against the H.M.S. Serapis.

(ISBN 0-9785265-2-X • $24.95 • 369 pgs • Trade Paperback)

A thrilling mystery set in 1860 Wilmington! With war clouds on the horizon, life in the port city of Wilmington, North Carolina is nothing if not exciting. Ace reporter Coleman Blue revels in the hustle and bustle of the booming river town even as, like most whites, he chooses to ignore the ugliness of the slave trade on which so much of the Lower Cape Fear’s wealth is predicated. But when a Yankee insurance detective presses Blue into an investigation of suspicious deaths of slaves owned by a long-time rival, Coleman Blue gets more excitement than he bargained for. On the eve of the Civil War, Coleman Blue is suddenly asking himself hard questions. The answers he finds will leave him fighting for his life.

(ISBN 0-9723240-4-6 • $19.95 • 264 pgs • Trim Size 8 1/2 x 11)

In 1848, New York journalist Benson J. Lossing took a two-year trip through the original thirteen states to preserve the stories of the American Revolution. Two years later, he published his mammoth history of the war, and it is still one of the best popular histories ever done on or nation’s first crucible by fire. Basically, if a Brit and an American stood on opposite sides of a stream and threw rocks at each other, Lossing has the story recorded here! This volume covers the war as it occured in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

(ISBN 978-0-9786248-5-9 • $21.95 • pages • trade paperback • illustrated)

It was by the placid waters of the Chesapeake Bay that some of the most dramatic scenes of the Revolutionary War were played out, paving the way for the birth of a new nation. In Virginia and Maryland, the struggle for independence from Great Britain was finally won at battlefields and towns that stretch from Annapolis to the Shenandoah Valley. In 1848, New Yorker Benson J. Lossing embarked on a two year trek that covered thousands of miles through the original thirteen states and Canada. His mission was to collect and preserve the stories of the men and women who had fought to make the United States a reality. His original work was published in 1850, consisting of two illustrated volumes comprising over 2,000 pages of first-hand history. In this book, we have excerpted the chapters that deal with the war in Virginia and Maryland (including Washington, D.C., West Virginia and the Albemarle region of North Carolina). It was the scene of some of the war’s hardest fights.Williamsburg...Richmond...Fredericksburg...Spencer’s Ordinary...Mount Pleasant...Blue Licks...Norfolk...Battle of the Capes...Yorktown...these are all places where the drama of the American Revolution was played out. Benson J. Lossing tells the stories of the heroes and villains of the war from the accounts of the people who were there. It includes illustrations of the people and places that played such a big role in our nation’s founding, and a wonderful picture of the original thirteen states as they were in the decade before America’s next great crucible, the Civil War. We hope you’ll enjoy this incredible account of the American Revolution that has been lost for too long.

(ISBN 0-9786248-8-2 • $14.95 • 168 pages • Trade Paperback • Illustrated)

“Let no one think me reckless of life, or regardless of my wife and children. No indeed, I yield to none in my love of life or of my family. But must a minister fly from disease and danger and leave poor people to suffer for want of attention?...Did the Saviour ever draw back? I know not what will be my fate. I have committed myself and family to God, praying Him to take care of us all. And if I fall, I leave you to his merciful care and protection.”

(ISBN 0-9723240-7-0 • $32.00 • 432 pgs • Trim Size 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 • Trade Paperback • Illustrated)

Called the “Gibraltar of the South,” Fort Fisher was the huge earthen fortification that was the linchpin of the Cape Fear defense system in the Civil War. While other books have done excellent jobs of telling the story of the capture of Fort Fisher and Wilmington, James L. Walker, Jr.’s book is the first to cover the fort and the city it protected over the course of the entire war. Copiously illustrated with period photographs and maps by noted mapmaker Mark A. Moore, this is the story of the men in gray who slugged it out on the Cape Fear beaches to protect the lifeblood of the Confederacy coming in on swift and daring blockade runners, and their ultimate defeat in 1865.

(ISBN 978-0-9814603-1-4 • $39.95 • Trade Paperback • Illustrated)

In 1996 the Underwater Archaeology Unit of the North Carolina Preservation Office teamed with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers to produce a survey of the Cape Fear and Northeast Cape Fear Rivers from its mouth at Old Inlet to just past Wilmington. Now public for the first time, this remarkable book is probably the most complete source of concise information on everything historical along the Cape Fear. Plantations, forts, lighthouses, ferry crossings, shipwrecks, shipyards - it’s all here, along with 60 maps dating from 1585 (including twenty locator maps showing where all of these historic finds are located) and more than 250 other images. This is a must-have book for the fan of Cape Fear history!

(ISBN 0-9723240-0-3 • $17.95 • Trade Paperback • Illustrated)

For more than four centuries, the Cape Fear and coastal North Carolina has been witness to some of the most dramatic events in American history. Pirates, plantations, Civil War forts and battles, redcoat occupiers during the American Revolution, Spanish raiders, con men (and women), headless ghosts, deadly duels, gun runners, Stamp Act resisters, lady spies, killer storms and yellow fever - it all happened along the North Carolina coast. In this book, we tell the true, factually accurate stories of our past like a fiction writer or storyteller would - so that it’s entertaining as well as informative!

(ISBN 0-9723240-2-X • $17.95 • Trade Paperback • Illustrated)

Volume I was such a success that we put together more stories from the colorful past of the Cape Fear and North Carolina coast! In this volume, you’ll read the true stories of Blackbeard, the Battle at Moores Creek, the Wilmington Riots of 1898, the only time the U.S. Marine Corps has ever been refused a beach, the British raid on Beaufort, running the Union blockade during the Civil War, King Hancock’s bloody warpath and much more!

(ISBN 0-9723240-6-2 • $12.95 • 115 pgs • Trim Size 6 x 9)

In 1725, Maurice Moore and his brothers began selling plots of land in Brunswick, the first permanent port on the Cape Fear. It was raided by Spanish privateers, burned and looted by the British, was home to two of North Carolina’s Royal Governors, and the residence of many of the Cape Fear’s most prominent founding fathers. In the Civil War, it was the site of Fort Anderson, the massive earthen fort that was the last installation guarding the vital port at Wilmington. This is the story of Brunswick and Fort Anderson and the state historic site that preserves their memories.

(ISBN 0-9723240-8-9 • $19.95 • 232 pgs • Trim Size 9 1/4 x 6 1/4)

In November of 1898, North Carolina’s largest city exploded in violence that left local blacks disenfranchised, evicted, and in some cases dead. The riots in Wilmington marked the beginnings of jim crow policies in the South, and resulted in the only successful overthrow of a duly-elected government in the history of the United States.

(ISBN 0-9723240-3-8 • $24.95 • 214 pgs • Trim Size 8 1/2 x 11 glossy • Trade Paperback • Illustrated in Color / B&W)

With hundreds of rare pictures, Wilmington: Lost But Not Forgotten captures the many architectural gems that North Carolina’s Port City has lost from the colonial period to the present day. Some were lost to natural disasters like fires and hurricanes. Others fell victim to the “progress” of Urban Renewal or the sometimes short-sightedness of private developers. Regardless of how or why these buildings were torn down and lost, they represent pages ripped from the community’s collective history. Preservationist Beverly Tetterton has assembled a collection of lost places that serve as cautionary tales for modern planners and citizens. As we move into the future, preserving the unique character of Wilmington’s past is a lesson worth learning.

(ISBN 978-0-9786248-2-8 • $10.95 • Paper • Illustrated)

Fort Johnston was not only North Carolina’s first fort, but until it was surplused by the U.S. Army in 2004, it was the oldest active duty military installation in the country. It has served under the flags of Great Britain, The Confederate States of America, and the United States. Its 258 years of service to our state and nation have seen it involved with virtually every episode of our long history. This book tells the story of the only place in N.C. to serve for more than two centuries under the flags of three countries.

(ISBN 978-0-9786248-7-3 • $10.95 • Trade Paper • Illustrated)

Before the coming of modern medicine, people living near the swampy coastal areas of North Carolina were frequently plagued by diseases that left many sick and dead. One of the worst of these was yellow fever. Carried by mosquitoes, the disease was a mystery to doctors until 1898. That was 36 years too late to save the hundreds of Wilmington residents who perished in the deadly outbreak of 1862. While the Civil War raged throughout the country, and Union warships stood offshore to stop the blockade runners making for the Confederate port at Wilmington, the city was full of soldiers and speculators, sailors, slaves and citizens. Before the yellow fever epidemic ended in November, a full third of Wilmington’s population would be dead. This is the story of a baffling illness that killed more often than not, and of the people who came together to weather the storm of death it brought.

(ISBN 978-0-9786248-9-7 • $12.95 • 56 pages • Trade Paperback • Trim Size 8.5” x 11” • Illustrated in color)

In the Golden Age of Piracy, North Carolina was a favorite haunt of colorful high seas rogues. With 300 miles of hard to access coastline, it was a haven for the likes of Blackbeard, Stede Bonnet, George Lowther, Edward Low, Calico Jack Rackham, and even the women pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read. In this book, Jack E. Fryar, Jr., tells the stories of the sea robbers who called North Carolina home, paints a picture of what a pirate’s life was really like, and explodes some of the most famous myths about the pirates!

(ISBN 0-9786248-0-7 • $10.95 • 36 pgs • Trade Paperback • Illustrated)

By late in the Civil War, Robert E. Lee’s army depended on the port at Wilmington to provide it with almost everything. Lee plainly said that if Wilmington fell, he could not keep his army in the field. The leaders of the Union army and navy knew it, too. That’s why on Christmas Eve, 1864, they launched a massive assault on Fort Fisher, the huge earthen fort at the southern tip of modern New Hanover County, which guarded access to the Cape Fear River. The attack was a failure, but two weeks later the Union fleet was back. This time the battle would decide once and for all who would control the South’s most vital port. Whoever did would win the war. This is the story of those two pivotal Civil War battles and the men who fought them, lavishly illustrated with color pictures and photographs. It is an ideal way to introduce young readers to the drama of America’s bloodiest war as it happened along the North Carolina coast!

(ISBN 0-9786248-1-5 • $11.95 • 36 pgs • Trade Paperback)

In 1776, America was a country at war with itself. British soldiers had shot colonial militia at Lexington and Concord, only to be shot in return by Massachusetts farmers and Minutemen on the long march back to Boston. In North Carolina, people were divided between those who wanted to remain loyal to King George III, and those who were ready to break away from Great Britain to form their own nation. North Carolina’s Royal Governor, Josiah Martin, had fled from New Bern’s fabulous Tryon Palace to the safety of a British warship anchored in the Cape Fear River. From there, he made a plan to put down the rebellion in the South with an army of Highlanders. Patriots who wanted a break with England wanted to stop that army. In February 1776, the two sides came together in a brief, fierce clash at a small creek in modern Pender County. It would be the first patriot victory against the British in the South, and the battle’s outcome would shake governments on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. This is the story of that clash.