For Emilian David Armstrong

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thankfully, I did not take this voyage alone. I'd like to offer here a few words of appreciation to those who have accompanied me.

To Vann Sauls, of McGee's Crossroads, North Carolina, for his friendship, his wit, and for the insights he imparted as we explored the Carolinas together. Without our conversations wandering the midnight streets of Charleston, and the woods at Bentonville, where the armies of North and South clashed so calamitously, this book would be much impoverished.

To Robb Humphreys and Joe Daley, who assisted me in my more obscure researches, never failing to find on the library shelves books that contained some vital nugget of information.

To my dear Anna Miller, who along with Robb and Joe runs our film production company here in LA. While I've been at sea with Galilee, ^he's kept the seductions and the insanities of this town at bay with chair .and whip.

To Don Mackay, who did me the great honor of making the typing of this manuscript his only distraction from his true vocation, which is that of actor.

And finally, to David John Dodds, who makes the world in which I live and work run like clockwork, a far from easy task. He has been my friend and guardian spirit for thirteen years. None of this would be possible without his love and faith in me.

C.B.

A the insistence of my stepmother Cesaria Barbarossa he house in which I presently sit was built so that it faces southeast. The architect-who was no lesser man than the third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson-protested her desire repeatedly and eloquently. I have the letters in which he did so here on my desk. But she would not be moved on the subject. The house was to look back towards her homeland, towards Africa, and he, as her employee, was to do as he was instructed.