Red Cap by G. Clifton Wisler (1994, Paperback) Puffin - Like New! Read Currently By Middle School Children With Erased Pencil Underlined Text. Pictured Wear Of Cover and Pages.  *Red Cap is a 1991 young adult historical novel by G. Clifton Wisler. The story, which is not based on a single person's biography, but was researched by Wisler, and drawn from the lives of several historical figures, follows the life of a young boy at the start of the American Civil War (1862).