The Pilot
A Novel of Freedom, Fire, and the Black Atlantic
Before the Civil War was a war, it was a tide—and no one read the tide like a pilot.
Description:
In the smoke-choked waters of a nation at war with itself, The Pilot charts the untold saga of Black sailors, smugglers, and freedom-fighters who turned the Atlantic into a battleground for liberty. Inspired by true events, this sweeping historical novel follows a cast of free Blacks, escaped slaves, and foreign volunteers—from the icy ports of Nova Scotia to the humid back alleys of Charleston—as they join the Union Navy in its deadliest hour.
At the heart of the storm is Robert Smalls, the enslaved pilot who stole the Confederate ship Planter and delivered her to freedom. Around him gathers a brotherhood forged in salt and blood: a Canadian fugitive smuggler, a Bahamian gun-runner, a Tunisian sharpshooter, and an African navigator who sailed across oceans to end a system that once shackled him. Together, they crew the Hartford, flagship of the U.S. Navy, and fight across the blockade, through firestorm battles, covert missions, and the brutal crucible of Charleston Harbor.
But this is more than a war story. It’s a reckoning with forgotten legacies. It’s Band of Brothers meets Glory, told from the deckplates up—and from the eyes of men too long erased from America’s memory.
For readers of: Ta-Nehisi Coates, David Grann, and The Known World, this is historical fiction that stares down the past—and demands we remember who bled to shape the future.
