Mississippi's writer extraordinaire. (Looking Back).

Prentiss Ingraham in his prime was one of the most remarkable men in America. Born in Adams County near Natchez on December 28, 1843, he rose to literary acclaim surpassed by only two other writers in the history of the world. During his thirty-plus year career as a fiction author he wrote, and had published, over nine hundred books. Of this almost unbelievable number, four hundred were novels and six hundred were novelettes. According to the Dictionary of American Biography, Ingraham wrote "the equivalent of 1,353,944 words a year, 3,708 words a day, or 154.07 words every hour of every day of thirty-four productive years." Trivia experts David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace claim in their book, The People's Almanac #3 (1981) that only South African writer Mary Faulkner (1903-1973) and American paperback novelist Lauran Paine (1916) were more prolific than the uncommonly gifted Natchezian.

Without question Prentiss Ingraham inherited his gift with the pen from his talented father, the Reverend Joseph Holt Ingraham. Reverend Ingraham, who wrote over eighty novels, was a successful author in his own right, and during his lifetime inspired at least one critic to compare him to James Fenimore Cooper. He has the distinction of being known as the author of the first biblical novel, The Prince of the House of David (1855). This exemplary work, "a fictionalized life of Christ based on the four Gospels," brought him a steadfast following, which has resulted in the continued reprinting of the book well into modern times.

Prior to becoming a writer Prentiss Ingraham lived a life of adventure so extraordinarily unique, it would be unbelievable had it not been recorded by fellow military leaders and historians. As a youngster he attended three different schools including Jefferson College at Washington where, according to the book, Education in the Old Southwest: A History of Jefferson College Washington, Mississippi (1976) by Williams T. Blain, his father was "among the college's faculty" during the prewar years. When hostilities erupted in April of 1861, eighteen-year-old Prentiss Ingraham wasted little time in joining with fellow Southern patriots as they prepared to defend their homeland. His obituary in the November 1904 issue of the Confederate Veteran magazine says that Ingraham began his service with a cavalry unit. After only a short time with them he was transferred to Battery K of Col. William T. Wither's Mississippi 1st Light Artillery Regiment where he was later appointed to serve on the staff. As a young officer he saw action during the first attack on Vicksburg, Snyder's Bluff, and Chickasaw Bayou. Later he fought through the siege at Port Hudson, Louisiana, where their cannon fire sank the 229-foot Federal side-wheel steamer, U.S.S. Mississippi. It was during this blistering engagement that he was both wounded and captured. Following his release as a POW he was reassigned to Col. Lawrence Sullivan "Sul" Ross's Brigade of Texas cavalry initially to staff duty, then later as a commander of scouts. Apparently before the stars and bars were furled for the last time he attained the rank of Colonel.

When the War ended he, like so many sons of the South, rejected the idea of living under the reconstruction government, preferring instead the life of a soldier of fortune. Beginning in the summer of 1865 he offered his services to Mexico's revolutionary leader, General Benito Juarez. Over the next fourteen months he fought under the eagle and serpent against the forces of the oppressive Prussian invader Ferdinand Maximillian. Following the successful conclusion of this affray he boarded a steamer for Austria where he continued to fight against pro-Maximillian forces in the Austro-Prussian War. Later he soldiered with Crete against the Turks, after which he fought with the Khedive's army in Egypt. Perhaps sensing this squabble between Egypt and Turkey to be a long drawn out affair, he accepted a commission with the rank of Colonel in the Cuban army to aide them in their quest for independence from Spain. However, before his stint with the Cubans ended he found himself a captain in their navy. Captured by the Spanish in 1870 and condemned to face a firing squad he escaped and made his way to England.

In London, the twenty-eight year old Ingraham discovered his gift of writing. Forced to provide for himself an income he, in the words of biographers Richard Robertson and Joseph Rosenbaum in Lives of Mississippi Authors, 1817-1967 (1981), began his literary career "by writing satiric sketches of the British social scene." This experience, which only lasted for a short time apparently, allowed him access to a number of publishers who influenced him to turn his talents toward the dime and half-dime novel market. He moved to New York where the demand for adventure fiction promised lucrative rewards. Surely fate had placed him in the right place at the right time. Drawing chiefly from his own experiences he soon mastered the technique of taking the reader through various scenes of danger and intrigue where the hero always triumphed in the end.

It was in the city of New York that he met, fell in love with, and married Rosa Langley who was an author also. She was an artist and a composer as well, who perhaps became best known for her musical compositions, some of which were performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. But mostly she became his lifelong partner, supporter, and friend.

In 1881 the Ingrahams went west with the publishing house of Beadle and Adams with which Prentiss formed a long relationship. It was during this time that the American west was building its own reputation. Millions of readers in the east as well as in England and continental Europe were eager to read about Indians, war parties, and bandits. During this extended trip Ingraham met William (Buffalo Bill) Cody, and for a period of time he became the famous showman's front man. Over the next two decades Ingraham wrote almost 200 paperback books extolling the adventures and "good-guy" image of the larger-than-life western hero, Buffalo Bill. It was largely through the pen and imagination of Ingraham with titles like Buffalo Bill with General Custer, Buffalo Bill's Border Duel, and Buffalo Bill's Midnight Ride that the western cowboy became such an enduring romantic figure. Ingraham is even credited by some western fiction historians as being the writer who influenced the dress and image of the American cowboy more than any other one person. During the 1880s, 1890s, and even into the teens of the early twentieth century thousands of young men from east of the Mississippi River went west in search of adventure. Most of them bought their boots and hats, spurs, and even their six-shooters before leaving home. It has even been suggested that Theodore Roosevelt, who himself was a voracious reader of Ingraham's westerns, arrived on the scene in North Dakota in 1884 wearing cowboy boots, spurs, chaps, a broad brimmed hat, and a red bandana tied around his neck--all of which he had purchased before leaving New York.

Ingraham is mostly known for his westerns, but he wrote far more than that. He wrote about detectives in Chicago, Boston, and New York. The one subject that he cared passionately about was the sea--sailing ships, pirates, and buccaneers. As in all of his written adventures he was able to call upon his past experiences, using them as a foundation. In his book, The Brand of the Red Anchor, which has "the ring of cutlass and the howls of prisoners' cries under the whip," Ingraham's hero escapes from a pirate ship and travels inland to Vicksburg where he recruits volunteers to help him bring defeat to the enemy. Ingraham's heroes always fought for principle, never did they fight for the love of conquest.

The adventurous Ingraham never really settled down. His mind wouldn't allow it, for it raced with and for excitement every day of his life. Once he left Natchez he never really lived in any one location for very long. After marrying in New York City he traveled the west for several years and in 1897 moved back east to Easton, Maryland, near Baltimore. In 1902 he and Rosa moved to Chicago. Although his life as a writer is well documented, there is not a lengthy biography of his life as a person, husband, or father, as far as I know. When researching for this article I learned from a couple of short generalized biographies that on August 12, 1904, his wife admitted him into the Mississippi Confederate Veteran Hospital at Beauvoir in Biloxi where four days later he died--and is buried in a pauper's grave. This discovery left me confused and disappointed. How could someone who wrote a thousand books die a pauper? And, how could a wife accompany her husband 900 miles, admit him into a hospital, and then leave?

On Robert E. Lee's birthday this year, my wife and I drove to Beauvoir in Biloxi seeking the answer to these questions. At Beauvoir we met three friendly, helpful people, Rosemary Potter and Celia Blunt, both knowledgeable historians who manage the generously stocked gift shop, and curator Patrick Hotard. They made us feel as if we were special guests who had responded to a written invitation to visit in their home. Nothing could have been further from the truth. We popped in on them unannounced, with unusual and numerous questions about an unfortunately obscure Mississippian, Prentiss Ingraham. Ms. Potter and Ms. Blunt were quick to hand us a map to the CSA Cemetery, there on the grounds, where some 700 defenders of the South lie buried. Each grave is numbered and they highlighted for us on the diagram the last resting place of Colonel Ingraham. While they were locating his grave on the map, Mr. Hotard left, went into the archives and brought back what were almost mint copies of four different Buffalo Bill b ooks written by the Colonel.

It didn't take my wife Donna and I long to find the Colonel's grave. It is near the fence bordering Beauvoir Road almost directly across the street from the Gulf Coast Coliseum. His tombstone is simple. They all are. The small white marble, 20-inch high marker bears raised two-inch lettering that reads: "PRENTIS INGRAHAM Col. ADAMS CO."

Beauvoir was purchased by the United Sons of Confederate Veterans in 1902 and was given to the State of Mississippi to be used as a home for disabled Confederate veterans, their wives and widows. It was opened with appropriate ceremonies on the state's eighty-sixth birthday, December 10, 1903.

It is from the obituary in the 1904 Confederate Veterans Magazine that I think I have found the answers to my questions about the mysterious death of the soldier, writer, and above all Southerner, Prentiss Ingraham. His obituary was written by a friend and a fellow soldier, a commander Owen of the Confederate Camp of New York. He stated that the Colonel was a member in good standing of that camp as of May 3, 1901. He verified that Ingraham was the founder of the Charles Winder U.C.V. Camp, number 989 in Easton, Maryland. Owen also stated, "Just a few days after his arrival at Beauvoir Confederate Home, the goal of his hopes and which had been the home of the chieftain he had loved so well, whose fortunes he had followed willingly in triumph and disaster, Col. Prentiss Ingraham passed to the home beyond--August 16, 1904." Ingraham was a soldier of the South who knew he was dying from Bright's disease, a painful deterioration of the kidneys, from which he suffered for more than two years. He made the long train trip from Chicago to the Gulf in bad physical condition with his wife. He arrived at Beauvoir weak and exhausted, and even though he received the best medical care, he never rallied. It now seems clear that he knew he was close to death when he began the trip, and so did his wife. She must have truly loved him to grant him his last wish of going home. The last four lines of a poem by an unknown author that accompany Col. Ingraham's obituary, serve appropriately as his epitaph:

We that are left will count it guerdon royal

Our heritage no years can take away

That we were born of those unflinching loyal,

Who loved the flag, who wore the gray.