2015 Florida Book Award Winner, Silver Medal The Union navy cripples the rebel defenses at Port Royal, South Carolina and panicky plantation owners flee, abandoning their crops, property, and 8,000 slaves. Neither planter nor slave realize November 7, 1861, would mark the end of life as they know it. The army confiscates a bumper crop of contraband Sea Island cotton and hires the slaves-also labeled contraband-to harvest it for the United States Treasury. Sensing a chance at freedom, the Negroes rejoice, recalling that day of awareness as 'The day the big gun shoot'. But Crecie, a field hand...