The Fabulous History of the Dismal Swamp Company: A Story of George Washington's Times

From historian Charles Royster--winner of the Francis Parkman, Bancroft, and Lincoln prizes--comes the history of one of eighteenth-century America's most fantastic land speculation deals: William Byrd's scheme to develop 900 square miles of swamp on the Virginia-North Carolina border and create fabulous wealth for himself and other shareholders, including George Washington.



Royster scrupulously follows the paper trail through the byways of transatlantic deal-cutting, providing a rare view of early American economic culture. Elegantly written and impressively researched, The Fabulous History of the Dismal Swamp Company is an eye-opening account of greed, folly, and venture capitalism in the revolutionary era.

CHARLES ROYSTER is Boyd Professor of History at Louisiana State University. His previous books include A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character, 1775-1783, which won the Francis Parkman Prize, and The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans, which won a Bancroft Prize and the Lincoln Prize.

About Charles Royster