Lew Wallace

But surprising conversions like this have been happening throughout the history of the church.

One example is Lew Wallace.

He was governor of New Mexico more than a century ago, and he wrote a very famous book called Ben-Hur.

You might have seen the movie.

Billy the Kid was tried and condemned to be executed.

He had been promised pardon by Governor Lew Wallace, but the pardon did not come.

A few days before the day set for his execution, the Kid, as elsewhere described, killed the two deputies who were guarding him and got back once more to his old stomping grounds around Fort Sumner.

"'I knew now that I would have to kill the Kid,' said Garrett to the writer, speaking reminiscently of the bloody scenes as we lately visited that country together." We both knew that it must be one or the other of us if we ever met.

And I think he's a solid guy.

I think that the Battle of Save Washington is people credit Lew Wallace because he would ultimately, you know, command there.

But James Ricketts is sort of the man there, really holding the center and whatnot.

And I've always admired the guy.

The Union won the Battle of Bern and the First Battle of Kernstown, and then there were draws at Glorietta Pass, New Mexico and Yorktown.

The Union won the Battle of Shiloh, where future Ben-Hur author Lew Wallace was accused of incompetence and cowardice.

The Union also won the Battle of Fort Pulaski and the Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, which gave the North control of New Orleans.

The North then won the Siege of Corinth, and Union General McClellan fought one of the most indecisive battles he would be involved in at Williamsburg, Virginia, which is really saying something, because he was pretty indecisive.

The soldiers at the fort paid no attention to them.

Now, Governor Lew Wallace, the famous author of Ben Hur, of Santa Fe, the capital of the territory of New Mexico, issued a proclamation granting a pardon to Billy the Kid and his followers if they would quit their lawlessness.

But the Kid laughed it off as a joke.

On the fifth day of August, Billy the Kid and gang rode up in plain view of the Mescalero Indian Agency and began rounding up a band of horses.

Light drifts of men Thrown forward, fade in skirmish lines Along the slope, where some dislodgements Must be made ere the stormer with the stronghold cope.

Lew Wallace, moving to retake The heights late lost.

Herewith, a break.

Storm at the west derange the wires.

Bithisarea, which becomes Balthazar, Melichior or Melchior, and Gathaspa, Gaspar.

So the, the, what derives from this is the three names you sometimes find in literature, like even, uh, Lew Wallace, when he wrote, uh, Ben-Hur, he, he was governor of Mexico, New, governor of New Mexico.

Uh, he gives them those names.

You know, he, he does that.