Black Cloud Rising

Set in autumn 1863, this historical novel opens as Union forces hold Tidewater Virginia and have gained a foothold in eastern North Carolina, the Outer Banks included. Thousands of people who had been held in bondage, some having escaped and others freed as the army advanced, crowded into Union lines, yet Confederate irregulars still moved through the countryside.

In December, a newly formed unit called the African Brigade left Portsmouth under General Edward Augustus Wild, a one-armed abolitionist with fierce convictions. Its soldiers were men who only weeks before had been enslaved, and now they were marching out to track down and destroy the rebel guerrillas. The book draws on this little-known chapter of the war.

At its center is Sergeant Richard Etheridge, the son of an enslaved woman and her master. He grew up with some privileges but was never allowed to forget his station, and that divided upbringing leaves him torn about his past while determined to prove his worth. As the brigade pushes through districts controlled by the Confederate Partisan Rangers, Richard and his comrades come to see that they are fighting for more than land. Wild needs to show that his troops can be relied on in battle, and many of the men have run from the plantations the unit is now approaching, so each raid also offers a chance to rescue loved ones still held there. For Richard, that includes the hope of reuniting with Fanny, whom he wants to wed someday.

The novel focuses on the bonds that form among men fighting side by side and on the sacrifice and courage those bonds demand, offering a layered picture of enslaved men and women stepping into freedom.