North by night

Second Impression © 1962 by Coward-McCann, Inc. All rights reserved. This book, or parts therefor, may not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publishers. Published simultaneously in the Dominion of Canada by Longmans Canada Limited, Toronto. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 61-18609 Manufactured in the United States of America
To the memory of Captain V. B. Chamberlain Seventh Connecticut Volunteers
Author’s Note
This story opens on St. Helena Island in July 1863. It is fiction but the battle and prison experiences of Lieutenant Timothy Bradford are based on those of Captain V. B. Chamberlain of the Seventh Connecticut Volunteer Infantry.
The Seventh Connecticut was part of an expeditionary force which was sent to South Carolina in October 1861 to occupy the islands along the coast and establish a base for military operations against the city of Charleston.
Union troops occupied the town of Beaufort on Port Royal Island and made their headquarters and their main base of supplies on the Island of Hilton Head.
The first charge on Fort Wagner (called Battery Wagner by the Confederates) is described in this book. Wagner was probably the strongest earthwork in the history of modern warfare.
A second charge on Wagner was mounted just one week after the first. This second attack was repulsed. Wagner was finally reduced by siege and occupied by Union troops in September 1863.
NORTH BY NIGHT
A big Negro was cleaning fish at the end of a spindly pier. He looked up as the two Yankee soldiers came toward him. He watched steadily as they approached but he showed no fear. The hot air shimmered as it rose from the sandy soil and the marsh grass whispered in a light breeze. The midday sun flashed on the water, making the white men draw their eyes into thin horizontal slits.
The taller soldier raised his hand in a casual greeting and stopped before his boots touched the gray, weathered boards of the pier. “Good catch?” he asked.