King Cotton

Richard Allan “Rick” Noble spent most of his career in publishing, although not as an author.

Always a history buff, Rick became interested in the Civil War when he lived in Louisville, Kentucky. Several readers of initial drafts of King Cotton suggested that it must have been difficult weaving a story through so many facts, real people, and actual places, dates, and events during that impossibly difficult chapter in America’s past. But Rick found the opposite. He knew the story he wanted to tell, and the events of the period provided a framework upon which to build it.

Some of the real-life characters in the book will be familiar to all – Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, Mathew Brady, Harriet Tubman, P.T. Barnum, James Wilkes Booth, Allan Pinkerton, and Mary Surratt, for example. Others less so, such as Kate Warne, Anna Surratt, John Surratt Junior, Chang & Eng Bunker, “Peanut” Burroughs, Rose O’Neal Greenhow, and John Beam. But all existed, as did the songs, guns, and places mentioned herein. The battles and other events (like the recovery of Lee’s Special Order 191 and the visit to New York City by the Russian Navy) also really happened. Readers are encouraged to look things up if in doubt, or curious for more. The internet makes doing so about as easy as it can get.

Our protagonist, John “Jack” Bailey, is entirely fictitious, as are his father, co-workers Elkins and Dawson, and a few other minor characters. The causes of certain true-life happenings in the book are still debated today, such as who shot Lincoln’s hat off outside Soldier’s Cottage a few months before he was assassinated, or how the devastating fire in Columbia, SC really got started. King Cotton offers some answers on those fronts, although highly speculative ones that involve Bailey.

This book is not meant to be a treatise on the horrors of slavery, although it would be impossible to cover the Civil War without that topic rearing its ugly head. Nor is it meant to be an exhaustive text on all the battles of that war, but those covered are done so accurately, if briefly. The newspaper quotes are all accurate, verified through NewsBank, a company that has digitized thousands of newspapers and other primary source materials dating back several hundred years.

Photography plays a major role in King Cotton, and the Civil War was one of the first conflicts ever covered by that medium. If you’ve seen even a few photographs from that era, you have almost certainly looked upon the work of Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, and/or Timothy O’Sullivan, all of whom are mentioned in the book. Some of their photographs are included, courtesy of the Library of Congress and its excellent collections. Again there are many more available on the internet and the same is true of battle and other maps that readers might find useful.

This book is about a man’s personal journey through a gruesome war as he tries to salvage his business, steer clear of trouble, and avoid responsibility – all while seeking personal gain and entertainment wherever he can find it. As a result of his experiences, however, a higher set of moral standards and a better appreciation of how others view the world evolve within him. King Cotton is also about an industry and a product that, at the time, countries were willing to fight wars over. Cotton was the oil or rare earth mineral of the day.