""Let No Guilty Man Escape," the first new Parker biography in four decades, corrects this simplistic image by presenting Parker's unique brand of frontier justice within the legal and political context of his time. Using primary documents from the National Archives, Missouri court records, and other sources not included by previous biographers, Roger H. Tuller demonstrates that Parker was an ambitious attorney who used the law to advance his own career. Parker rose from a frontier Missouri lawyer to become a congressional representative, and when Reconstructionist-era politics denied him continued progress, he sought the judicial appointment for which he is most remembered."--BOOK JACKET.

Whether putting Generals Burnside, Hooker, and Robert E. Lee in their place, or listening to foul-mouthed General Sherman, Hiram Ulysses S. 'Useless' Grant offers an amusingly warped perspective on the Civil War.

The most flamboyant, consistently dishonest racketeer was Supervisor of Internal Revenue John McDonald, whose organization defrauded the federal government of millions of dollars. When President Grant was asked why he appointed McDonald supervisor of internal revenue he responded, “I was aware that he was not an educated man, but he was a man that had seen a great deal of the world and of people, and I would not call him ignorant exactly, he was illiterate.” McDonald organized and ran the Whiskey Ring but he always credited Grant with the initiation of the Ring declaring that the president “actually stood god-father at its christening.” The demise of the Ring rivals anything that the real or fictional Elliot Ness and his “Untouchables” ever accomplished during the prohibition era in America.