John Roy immigrated to New Orleans from Dundee Scotland. He's working under Beauregard building the Custom House when the Civil War erupts. He is not a slaveholder but loves his adopted state. "For Want of a Ship" takes you through his efforts to aid his adopted country by building cannons, ship armament, and even a submarine for the Confederacy.

   When New Orleans falls, he knows his family will be safer if he is not in Louisiana within General Butler's reach. He goes to Selma to work in a foundry and then to Shreveport to help build the CSS Missouri, the last Confederate ironclad to surrender in American waters.

    While the war is front and center, family life goes on. His brother is murdered because of his political views in a polarized nation. His son is killed fighting a fire in the New Orleans French Quarter. You'll meet his daughters, his wife, and their outspoken Irish maid. His friend, a free man of color who joins a Confederate militia troop, has his own opinions about the war.

   The book is fiction but it is about real people and based on true events, much of it documented in John Roy's Diary and other books. His submarine is now on display in Baton Rouge at the Capitol Park Museum. It's an up-close and personal look at real people during the nation's most trying time. It is book three in my War in the West trilogy but is completely stand alone.