Former Navy officer spotlights the Revolution’s Southern campaign in new novel

Ray Deptula’s new book, Can’t Find My Way Home, shifts the focus of the American Revolution to the brutal Southern campaign that helped decide the war. The second installment in his Those Damned Yankees series follows two soldiers after the Battle of Camden as they fight to survive in South Carolina.

Why it matters: - The American Revolution is often remembered through Lexington and Yorktown, but the Southern campaign helped determine the war’s outcome. - Deptula’s novel aims to bring wider attention to that neglected theater and the human cost of the fighting in South Carolina. - The book also centers the moral strain of slavery and survival in wartime, adding a personal lens to a pivotal historical moment.

What happened: - Former U.S. Naval Officer Ray Deptula released Can’t Find My Way Home, the second book in his Those Damned Yankees series. - The novel follows British deserter Jack Halliday and Custis, an enslaved man, after they are separated from the Continental Army following the Battle of Camden. - The story places the pair in South Carolina, where rival militias and local violence reshape daily life as the Revolution turns brutal in the South. - The book is published by Speaking Volumes and is listed with a June 30, 2026 release date.

The details: - Deptula based the story on historical research and the sequence of Revolutionary War events. - The narrative picks up after Jack Halliday and Custis endure the winter of 1780-81 at Washington’s army encampment in New Jersey. - The Battle of Camden becomes the turning point that scatters Continental forces and leaves British power entrenched in the southern provinces. - Jack feels a moral obligation to protect Custis, whom the novel frames as both a friend and property in a slaveholding society. - Deptula said military service is sustained by loyalty to comrades, not ideology, and that the relationship between Jack and Custis sits at the center of the book. - The title comes from the pair’s effort to find safety and return home. - The book carries ISBN-13 979-8890224170 and is available from Amazon.

Between the lines: - The novel uses a wartime friendship to explore broader themes of moral survival, loyalty and the instability of social order. - By shifting attention to the South, Deptula is challenging the familiar, northern-centered shorthand of the Revolution. - The book’s slavery backdrop makes the story feel less like battlefield history and more like a conflict over power, property and conscience.

What’s next: - Deptula is continuing the Those Damned Yankees series with this second installment. - Readers can find more information at the author’s website. - Deptula lives in Merritt Island, Florida, with his wife, Julia, after a 24-year Navy career that included service in Europe, the Mideast, Africa and the Caribbean.

The bottom line: - Can’t Find My Way Home reframes the Revolution through the Southern campaign and two unlikely survivors caught in its aftermath.