Braving Red Waters by Sarah Hanks
Braving Red Waters
My newest release, Braving Red Waters, is a time-travel novel featuring the USS Red Rover, the first Navy hospital ship in the Civil War. I’d been wanting to write about this fascinating steamboat for years and finally got my chance.
While the Red Rover was originally used as a Confederate barracks ship, it was captured by the Union and then outfitted as a fully supplied hospital ship. It was the first of its kind, with bathrooms, laundry, elevators, amputation rooms, gauze blinds, two kitchens, and a huge supply of ice. While other ships transported injured soldiers, this one was created to actually care for them on board. Revolutionary!
Several nuns worked as nurses, but they weren’t the only ones to serve on the USS Red Rover. There were a handful of “contrabands” (former slaves) who volunteered to work on the ship. They were called “first class boys” (a designation normally given to teenage boys who helped with sailing duties), and their pay reflected that rank, but their true job was nursing injured soldiers. This made the Red Rover a fully integrated hospital ship. Escaped former slaves working alongside nuns and White male doctors and sailors. It was unheard of, and yet, there are no reports of racial conflict between the staff.
It’s easy to paint the picture of the Civil War far too simply. The North = good, the South = bad. It was far more complicated than that. Many of those were anti-slavery did not believe in racial equality. There were no doubt those who did not want a Black person tending to them. However, most were desperate enough to not complain.
Probably the most famous Red Rover nurse was Ann Bradford Stokes. She was the first woman to apply for and received a pension for her own service in the Navy (not her husband’s service.) Born into slavery, she didn’t know how to read or write. She escaped her bondage and, with the passing of the Emancipation Proclamation, she found purpose in nursing injured soldiers. Can you imagine just how brave she had to have been?
While Ann Bradford Stokes is not a main character in Braving Red Waters, she does appear as a side character, and the boat is shown as integrated.
While researching this story, I came upon an article showing my great-great-grandpa owned and piloted the Red Rover before the Civil War. Now I know why I’ve been drawn to steamboats. It’s in my blood.
You can grab a copy here: https://www.amazon.com/Braving-Red-Waters-Adventure-Sailors-ebook/dp/B0H3D1P24B
Here’s more about the book:
Phoebe Bristow has spent a decade guarding her heart after her father walked out and shattered her family. When she touches a mysterious antique mailbox aboard a whale-watching cruise in Baja California and wakes up in Civil War St. Louis, she must learn to trust again, first the quick-witted man who greets her on shore, then the God who placed her there for reasons she cannot yet understand. Back on the cruise, her mother Erica clings to the mailbox as the only thread connecting her to her missing daughter, while a thoughtful marine biologist, Rodney Duncan, steadily dismantles the walls around her wounded heart. Together and apart, mother and daughter discover that the courage to love again may be the most dangerous mission of all.
Sarah Hanks is a multi-award-winning author of split-time Christian fiction. Her background in teaching and children’s ministry prepared her for exercising her creativity as a writer, now her full-time job. She and her husband have ten children, a couple of whom seem to have inherited their mother’s love for playing with words and crafting stories. Though Sarah dreams of a cabin by the beach, the family lives jammed together in beautiful chaos near St. Louis, Missouri. She buys earplugs in bulk.
You can follow her on Facebook or Instagram @authorsarahhanks.
