R.L.Y. Peyton: An American Journey, 1824-1863

R.L.Y. Peyton's journey from obscurity to the national stage and then to oblivion, is as unlikely as it is incredible.  Born into the cavalier Virginia gentry, Lud's family migrated to Oxford, Ohio.  He attended Miami University before getting a law degree at the University of Virginia.  For 10 years he practiced frontier law in Harrisonville, Mo.  Suddenly in 1854, inflamed by the Kansas - Nebraska Act Lud exploded onto the political stage.  He represented western Missouri in the state senate, helped trigger secession and then served in the C.S.A. Senate.  He died from malaria in Alabama in 1863.  Peyton's journey is uniquely American, his life narrating Missouri's, and the country's, ante-bellum history. 

This hardback biography contains 419 narrative pages.  Twenty-five (25) original maps, eighty-five (85) photographs, twenty (20) newspaper clippings, and three original illustrations illuminate his life.