New Historical Novel Explores America's Worst Maritime Disaster and the Violence of the Reconstruction Era
Charleston, SC, July 09, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Palmetto Publishing releases a new historical fiction novel, The Sultana's Saboteur, a visceral exploration of the Reconstruction Era written by Danny T. and Elizabeth P. Ferguson. The novel places a fictional saboteur at the heart of America’s worst maritime catastrophe and traces his path through the violent decades that followed.
Beginning in April 1865, just twelve days after President Lincoln's assassination, the story opens with the destruction of the Sultana near Memphis. Skeletal survivors of Confederate prison camps who are finally heading home have their hopes and dreams shattered by disaster. The novel follows a dark protagonist, Rummy Joe Greene, who is responsible for the sabotage. This embittered Confederate veteran escapes into the chaos of a fractured nation and resurfaces along the Carolina coast, where he spends his next thirty-three years traveling the rivers and coastal waterways, immersed in debauchery, racial terror, and unwavering loyalty to the Lost Cause.
Calling himself the "Swamp Stud," Rummy Joe proclaims that "The South will rise again," while haunting the marshes, barrier islands, beaches, brothels, and posh resorts of the coast. He rides with the Ku Klux Klan, encourages vote rigging, torches homes and Black churches, commits acts of sexual violence, and spreads a swath of hatred and terror across the Carolinas. The novel unfolds against real historical events, including the Emancipation Proclamation, the liberation of Georgetown, the rise of the Red Shirts, the Compromise of 1877, and the sinking of the USS Maine. The story ends with the Wilmington coup d'état of 1898—the only successful overthrow of a democratic government in American history. Throughout the novel, an elderly former slave Archie Brown shares his thoughts on Rummy Joe's evil, raising the question of how long one man's hatred can burn before it finally consumes him.
Through this spell-binding narrative, the novel examines the post-Civil War continuation of oppression—but by a different name—as newly emancipated Black Americans struggle to achieve the freedom they had been promised. Readers of narrative-driven historical fiction who don’t mind a rough and ragged look at history will enjoy this story. Civil War enthusiasts and Southern history buffs, in particular, will be drawn to this sweeping, multi-decade saga. For fans of Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain or Edward P. Jones's The Known World, this book is a can’t-miss with its exploration of racism’s brutal legacy.
The Sultana's Saboteur is available for purchase online at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.
About the Author:
Danny T. Ferguson is a retired criminal defense attorney whose fifty-year legal career spanned Memphis, Tennessee and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. A graduate of the University of Memphis School of Law, where he served as managing editor of the law review, Danny worked as an assistant public defender, coordinator of capital defense teams in Shelby County, Tennessee, and counsel for the Guardian Ad Litem office. He also served honorably in the U.S. Marine Reserves. Co-author Elizabeth P. Ferguson is a retired music educator who enjoyed a forty-year career as a music teacher and choral director in Hampton and Newport News, Virginia and Winston Salem-Forsyth County, North Carolina public schools and churches. She holds a Master of Music Education from Virginia Commonwealth University. For more about Danny T. and Elizabeth P. Ferguson, visit thefergusonauthors.com.
Attachment