Showing results by author "Diane Swearingen" in All Categories

The Smallest Tadpole’s War in the Land of Mysterious Waters is based on a true story, a family story. In early 1861, Florida was a rural frontier state that had joined the Union just 15 years before. Its population of 140,000 was by far the smallest of any of the states that formed the Confederacy. In the 1860s, a Northern newspaper referred to Florida as "the smallest tadpole in the dirty pool of succession."

My name is Charles Fredrick Diesel, Charlie. This is my family’s story. On the surface, it is not much different from other families. I grew up happy and loved, but I realized early on that my parents had parts of their lives they kept secret. Something hidden in the shadows only discussed around town in whispers. Something so powerful that it could make my mother wake in terror. By the time I started high school, I had become obsessed with finding out what was hiding in those shadows.