Hildebrand: Missouri's Most Dangerous Bushwhacker

Book excerpt: There are three parts to this book. Part One is an Introduction by Charles M. Province. Part Two is a reprint of the Autobiography or "confession" of Samuel S. Hildebrand as compiled, written, and published by James W. Evans and A. Wendell Keith. Because Sam was illiterate, he narrated his "book" to Evans and Keith who transcribed and compiled Sam's stories for publication. Part Three is a facsimile reproduction of an extremely rare DeWitt "Dime Novel" published in New York City in 1869. It's a "Ten Cent Romance" by Col. Cris Forrest. The story is told out of chronological order, it confuses many details of Sam's life, and the "romance" is quite absurd. But, such was the case during the "wild west" era. Publishers were more concerned with selling a cracking good yarn than they were with telling the truth.