Oliver Optic

A reprint of a nineteenth-century novel recounting the conflict between a teenage boy and his father when the former commits what he thinks is a charitable act.

In command of a steamer on which he discovers Confederate spies, Christy Passford tries to intercept two new gunboats traveling from England to the South, then assists in an attempt to stop blockade runners operating out of Florida's Cedar Keys.

After successfully defending his father's steam-yacht from a group of Confederates led by his cousin from Alabama, eighteen-year-old Christy Passford, a newly-commissioned Union naval officer, is assigned to that same yacht and sent to battle in the South.