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Acknowledgments

For nearly fifty years I have been searching for Ransom Clark. Virtually everyone I know has aided in the quest—people near and far, family, friends, and strangers. The list is staggering. Each one has helped me find a piece of the puzzle. I could never have attempted to recreate his world and his life without your help. I thank you all.

Members of The Seminole Wars Foundation, and in particular the board of directors, have encouraged and given support to this work, along with their valuable contributions in saving important sites of the wars and publishing both rare and new material on the wars.

Jackson Walker, noted painter of Florida’s past, has recreated the moment of Clark’s first shoulder wound for the front cover; his painting of Dade’s Battle is on the title page. I can only hope that the text portrays these moments with anything near the accuracy and feeling of Walker’s paintings.

Debbie Harper, a cherished friend, secretary, and magician, has come to the rescue time and again through the years of research and writing to save me from my own computer missteps and the despair that came from the seeming loss of words, pages, and even chapters. I will be forever grateful.

June Cussen and Helena Berg at Pineapple Press have been diligent and considerate in preparing this work for publication, gently and diplomatically suggesting a better way around my many errors. And I thank publisher David Cussen who made this publication possible.

My wife Dale Anne and our daughter Suzanne read the manuscript and suggested modifications that have greatly improved the telling of Clark’s story. Our daughter Amie handled years of email, letters, and phone calls in the quest for all things relating to Clark, in addition to managing our family business. Her patience, her affection, have made all the difference. The encouragement of our daughters Jennifer and Jodi and our son Christopher has helped to justify taking time from the responsibilities of life to indulge the privilege of writing. The work on Dade’s battle has been going on through our children’s entire lifetimes. Each of them has had a hand in the research in both written work and the field, has contributed to the perpetual discussion. Their unqualified support has brought me through.