This excerpt provides a view of what life around the Cumberland Basin on the C&O Canal was like.
David
stepped into the large warehouse at the southern end of the canal basin
in Cumberland. The bay doors had been swung open to allow sunlight to
shine on the work going on inside. However, it also meant that the
warehouse stayed cold inside. It was nothing more than a very long barn.
The difference was that this barn housed canal boats not livestock. The
Lewis Boatworks was one of a handful of boat yards in Cumberland that
built and repaired canal boats for canallers.
During
the summer, some work could be done outdoors if the warehouse had a
large enough yard, but there was a greater risk of sabotage from
Confederate sympathizers, railroaders or simply hooligans against the
exposed canal boats. Confederate raiders or sympathizers had burned the
bridge from Cumberland to Ridgeley, West Virginia, and torn up the
B&O Railroad track outside of Cumberland early in the war. Because
of that, Amos Lewis preferred to construct his boats indoors and them
roll them on logs out the warehouse doors that opened onto the
Cumberland Basin.
David
saw three men hammering boards that would become the roof of the family
cabin onto the cabin frame. The boats on the C&O Canal were all
roughly the same shape and length in order to fit into the seventy-four
lift locks along the canal. The boats were each ninety-two feet long.
Most were made of Georgia pine, though new boats being built were
understandably made of trees harvested in the north. The largest area on
a canal boat was the cargo holds, which made up about eighty percent of
the space on a boat. The remaining space was taken up by three cabins; a
family cabin and a mule shed sat on opposite ends of the canal boat,
and a hay house was located in the middle of the boat.
David
could smell creosote and wood and hear men talking and laughing as they
worked on the canal boat. He had once been surprised that Cumberland,
which was a city in the mountains, had a reputation for shipbuilding,
but after working on the canal, he knew it was deserved. From here, the
canal boats could be ordered by individual captains or the Consolidated
Coal Company and launched at the canal basin to be filled with coal.
Cumberland
was an important shipbuilding city because the C&O Canal was the
lifeline for getting coal from the mountains of Western Maryland to
Washington City. Access to coal was one of the reasons that the first
destination for both the C&O Canal and the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad had been to reach Cumberland.
The
C&O Canal and the B&O Railroad both began construction on July
4, 1828; the canal from Washington and the railroad from Baltimore. In
the following years, the canal was delayed by an extended legal battle
at Point of Rocks, fighting for the right of way and by Mother Nature
near Paw Paw, Virginia, to dig the Paw Paw Tunnel. By the time the canal
reached Cumberland in 1850, the railroad had already been there and
operating for eight years.
The
need for coal had allowed both businesses to survive and grow. It was
particularly important now because portions of the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad kept changing hands between the Confederacy and the Union. Part
of the railroad’s right-of-way ran through West Virginia, which still
had strong Southern sympathies despite the fact the Unionists had
gathered enough support to break West Virginia off from Virginia to form
a new Union state. The C&O Canal had proven to be fairly reliable
in getting much-needed coal to the capital city, despite the
Confederacy’s efforts to stop boating on the canal.
The
Civil War split the United States and now it has split the Fitzgerald
Family. Although George Fitzgerald has returned from the war, his sister
Elizabeth Fitzgerald has chosen to remain in Washington to volunteer as
a nurse. The ex-Confederate spy, David Windover, has given up on his
dream of being with Alice Fitzgerald and is trying to move on with his
life in Cumberland, Md. Alice and her sons continue to haul coal along
the 184.5-mile-long C&O Canal. It is dangerous work, though, during
war time because the canal runs along the Potomac River and between the
North and South.
Having had to endured death and loss already, Alice wonders whether remaining on the canal is worth the cost. She wants her family reunited and safe, but she can’t reconcile her feelings between David and her dead husband. Her adopted son, Tony, has his own questions that he is trying to answer. He wants to know who he is and if his birth mother ever loved him. As he tries to find out more about his birth mother and father, he stumbles onto a plan by Confederate sympathizers to sabotage the canal and burn dozens of canal boats.
He enlists David’s help to try and disrupt the plot before it endangers his new family, but first they will have find out who is behind the plot.
Having had to endured death and loss already, Alice wonders whether remaining on the canal is worth the cost. She wants her family reunited and safe, but she can’t reconcile her feelings between David and her dead husband. Her adopted son, Tony, has his own questions that he is trying to answer. He wants to know who he is and if his birth mother ever loved him. As he tries to find out more about his birth mother and father, he stumbles onto a plan by Confederate sympathizers to sabotage the canal and burn dozens of canal boats.
He enlists David’s help to try and disrupt the plot before it endangers his new family, but first they will have find out who is behind the plot.
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Genre – Historical Fiction
Rating – PG-13
More details about the author
Website jamesrada.com
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