It was a whiskey-soaked age that was supposed to be dry. Prohibition may have been the law of the land, but hte Chesapeake Bay country was awash in a sea of illegal alcohol. The marshes were teeming with hidden stills, and bootleg liquor was smuggled throughout the waterways and the adjoining countryside by daring men in fast boats and faster cars. Chesapeake Rumrunners of the Roaring Twenties is a saga of people--watermen and steamer captains, mob raketeers and "legitimate" buisnessmen--all of them wanting part of the action. In the maze of Bay waters, boats played a key role in that action, many disguised as workboats but built for speed and the ability to out-maneuver the law. On the other side, Billy Sunday and an army of temerpance crusaders campaigned tirelessly to encourage Prohibition, while federal agents and Coast Guardsmen shared the impossible task of enforcing it.

A rich panorama of fascinating Civil War history, this is the story of gunboats and smugglers, privateers and street-brawlers--the chronicle of mighty armies and ironclads, shoreline artillery and tidewater guerillas, blockade-running oystermen, and the unsung sailors of the Potomac Flotilla. This is the story of the Chesapeake Bay in the Civil War.

Libraries, archives, and museums reveal clues to the colorful characters lining the history of Delaware, from its earliest colonial days to the invention of the "beach resort" and the founding of the nation's "Summer Capital" to World War II and the present. Author Michael Morgan brings together this kaleidoscopic view of the men of the sea and the beachfront tycoons who shaped Delaware and its role in the development of America, in war, politics, and business, from the Europeans' arrival at Cape Henlopen until modern times. While the intrepid patriot Henry Fisher and the infamous serial killer Patty Cannon are not known beyond the boundaries of southern Delaware, others such as William Penn, Captain Kidd and the DuPonts enjoy more widespread reputations. Here, tales of shipwrecks and rumrunners combine with the politics of slavery and suffrage to illuminate the history of one corner of the United States, a microcosm that synthesizes light on various facets of the development of the United States in a broader context. * Michael Morgan pens a weekly column, "Delaware Diary," in the Delaware Coast Press and has authored many stories for The Baltimore Sun, Maryland Magazine, Civil War Times Illustrated, America's Civil War and other periodicals for the past 15 years. He is a frequent guest speaker at historical societies in Lewes, Georgetown, and other towns along the Delaware coast.

In 1920, the 18th Amendment made the production, transportation and sale of alcohol not merely illegal--it was unconstitutional. Yet no legislation could end the demand for alcohol. Enterprising rumrunners worked to meet that demand with cunning, courage, machineguns and speedboats powered by aircraft engines. They out-maneuvered the U.S. Coast Guard and risked their lives to deliver illicit liquor. Smugglers like Bill McCoy, the Bahama Queen, and the Gulf Stream Pirate, along with many others, ran operations along the U.S. coastline until Prohibition was repealed in 1933. Drawing on legal records, newspaper articles and Coast Guard files, this history describes how rumrunners battled the Dry Navy and corrupted U.S. law enforcement, in order to keep America wet.

Now, for the first time, comes a long-overdue book that presents all of the U.S. Navy’s rich cargo of paranormal phenomena. There is the great Stephen Decatur, whose mournful apparition still stalks the halls of his famous home, said to be one of the most haunted spots in Washington, D.C. USS The Sullivans, now a floating museum, is the source of much disturbing spectral activity—poltergeists opening locks, hurling objects, and turning on radar that’s no longer under electrical power. Then there are the repeated sightings of the handsome USS Lexington ghost, “polite . . . kind . . . smartly dressed in a summer white Navy uniform.” From translucent sails to phantom crews, from a flaming ghost ship to the infamous psychic anomaly at the U.S. Naval Academy to battleships where the dead still linger, this book offers no less than a haunted history of the U.S. Navy.

Explore the fasciniating history of Prohibition in one of the places where it was most defied-- Baltimore, Maryland. There was perhaps no region more opposed to Prohibition than Baltimore and Maryland. The Free State was defiant in its protest from thoroughly wet Governor Albert Ritchie to esteemed Catholic Cardinal James Gibbons. Maryland was the only state to not pass a "baby" Volstead enforcement act. Speakeasies emerged at Frostburg's Gunter Hotel and at Baltimore's famed Belvedere Hotel, whose famous owls' blinking eyes would notify its patrons if it was safe to indulge in bootleg liquor. Rumrunners were frequent on the Chesapeake Bay as bootleggers populated the city streets. Journalist H.L. Mencken, known as the "Sage of Baltimore," drew national attention criticizing the new law. Author Michael T. Walsh presents this colorful history.

From its settlement in 1634 to its important proximity to the nation's capital in the present, Maryland has served as a crossroads of America, influencing critical events, not the least of which have been numerous crimes.