The Last Shot

[L Verge]

I am taking this opportunity to announce a new book hitting the market right now; I am also taking this opportunity to say that I am ducking for cover and going into hiding when certain "traditional" historians catch wind of it.

Wild Bill and his wing man, Rick Smith, have compiled The Last Shot, a 169-page book of ten essays related to Civil War politics, various segments on the Lincoln assassination, and political studies on the effects of Republicanism, Reconstruction, and assorted other items that have taken our country from a coalition of states to a central form of government closely related to an empire.

Yes, we will be selling it through the Surratt House gift shop, but we have not yet negotiated a wholesale price (therefore a retail figure) with the publisher. The authors will also be signing copies of the book at the Surratt Conference in April. (And we may have to install bullet-proof glass around their table!)

I shall crack open the pages this weekend and decide whether or not such protection will be necessary. So far, the title for the preface has made me a believer: History is Written by Those Who Have Hanged the Heroes. Credited to a voice-over by Robert the Bruce from the opening of Mel Gibson's great Braveheart.