Tidewater Reckoning: Pirates, Rebels, and the Carolinas' Buried Fortunes

A British lieutenant takes twenty-five wounds from a pirate captain who refuses to die . A wealthy planter buys his own ship and sails straight to the gallows. A submarine vanishes into the dark with her entire crew frozen at their stations-and it takes a century and a half, and a 2017 physics study, to finally explain why.Tidewater Reckoning uncovers the Carolinas' three-century relationship with lost, hidden, and stolen wealth. Starting where the legend always begins-Blackbeard's brutal last stand at Ocracoke-this book goes considerably further than standard treasure lore ever dares.Inside this meticulous, fast-paced accounting, you'll uncover: - Pirates & Blockades: The one confirmed pirate shipwreck in Carolina waters, and the legendary hoard that's still missing.- Rhett Butler & Missing Millions: A high-stakes Confederate blockade runner whose owner may have inspired Margaret Mitchell-and whose vanished government gold was never accounted for.- Impenetrable Swamps: The Great Dismal Swamp, which sheltered the largest concentration of self-governing Maroon communities in North America for nearly two centuries, completely uncaught.- Lowcountry Folklore: The Gullah Geechee Plat-Eye spirit, still said to guard Confederate silver buried in a hurry ahead of Sherman's advance.- The Forgotten Gold Rush: America's very first gold rush-fifty years before California-that started when a farm boy found a 17-pound nugget and sold it as a doorstop for $3.50.- Reconstruction Scandal: A infamous governor who integrated a state university and sold executive pardons for cash in the exact same administration.- Outlaws to Icons: Appalachian moonshine runners whose souped-up getaway cars, engineered to outrun federal agents on mountain backroads, birthed NASCAR.Every claim in these pages is graded with ruthless honesty. Some of the Carolinas' most famous legends receive far less certainty here than popular ghost tours allow. Meanwhile, the most fascinating under-told stories-a lost colony finally tracked down by modern archaeology, a century-old submarine death trap solved by blast physics, and a massive industrial empire built from a burned-out farm-get the full, evidence-backed treatment they deserve.23 Chapters. 6 Comprehensive Parts. Detailed Custom Maps.Welcome to a coastline that has spent four hundred years proving it's better at keeping secrets than anyone who ever came looking for them.