Lew Wallace

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Lew Wallace (credit: Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

(born April 10, 1827, Brookville, Ind., U.S. — died Feb. 15, 1905, Crawfordsville, Ind.) U.S. writer. The son of Indiana's governor, he served in the Mexican War and in the American Civil War, in which he rose to the rank of major general. Later he returned to law practice, interrupted by two diplomatic postings. His literary reputation rests on three historical novels: The Fair God (1873), on the Spanish conquest of Mexico; The Prince of India (1893), on the Byzantine Empire; and, above all, the enormously popular Ben-Hur (1880; films, 1925, 1959), a romantic tale set in the Roman Empire during the time of Christ.

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US Military Dictionary: Lewis Wallace

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Wallace, Lewis (1827-1905) U.S. army officer and historical novelist. Born in Brookville, Indiana, Wallace was largely self-educated. He served with Indiana militia units in the Mexican War (1846-1848) and thereafter remained active in the militia, being named Adjutant-General of Indiana at the start of the Civil War. He subsequently led the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry in the battles of Romney and Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. He was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers in September 1861 and to major general of volunteers in March 1862. He commanded with distinction at Fort Donelson (February 1862) and Shiloh (April 1862), prevented Confederate general E. Kirby Smith's raid on Cincinnati, Ohio (1863), and delayed Confederate general Jubal Early's advance on Washington at the Monocacy River, Maryland (July 1864). After the war, Wallace served on the trial by court-martial of the assassins of Abraham Lincoln and was president of the court-martial which convicted the Confederate commandant of Andersonville prison, Captain Henry Wirz, of war crimes. He became active in Republican politics and served as governor of New Mexico (1878-1881) and as U.S. minister to Turkey (1881-1885). In 1880, Wallace published the very successful historical novel, Ben Hur, A Tale of the Christ. He also published several less successful historical novels.

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Biography: Lewis Wallace

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Lewis Wallace (1827-1905) was an American military leader and popular author, remembered especially for the novel "Ben-Hur".

Lew Wallace was born in Brookville, Ind. He became a lawyer but left his practice to serve in the Mexican War in 1846. During the Civil War he served in the Union forces with such distinction that he was promoted to major general. He led the courts of inquiry investigating the conduct of Gen. D.C. Buell and of the commander of the Andersonville prison and was a member of the court trying those charged with conspiring against President Lincoln. In 1865 he resigned from the Army and for the rest of his life practiced law. He served as governor of the new Mexican Territory (1878-1881) and minister to Turkey (1881-1885) and wrote very popular novels and an excellent autobiography.

Wallace's romantic novel The Fair God; or, The Last of the Tzins (1873) told about Hernán Cortés's invasion of the Aztec empire in Mexico and his eventual defeat by Prince Guatamozin. The considerable success of this book encouraged him to write Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), a colorful story about a young Jewish patrician, Judah Ben-Hur, who as a result of false accusations by Messala is sent to the galleys for life. He escapes, returns as a Roman officer, wins a chariot race against Messala, and exposes him. Meanwhile Ben-Hur's mother and sister have been imprisoned and have contracted leprosy. The hero rescues them and goes with them to seek out Christ. When Christ cures the women, they and Ben-Hur become converts. Wallace's skill as a storyteller, his invention of exciting events, and his vivid representation of the late Roman Empire and the beginnings of Christianity made the novel one of the best-selling books of its period in the United States (more than 2 million copies) and in many foreign countries.

Wallace's stay in Turkey prompted him to write The Prince of India (1893), a lengthy novel based upon the legend concerning the Wandering Jew. Wallace also wrote the narrative The Boyhood of Christ (1888) and had almost finished Lew Wallace: An Autobiography at the time of his death. Completed by his wife, Susan Arnold Wallace, who also was a writer, it was published in 1906.

A dramatization of Ben-Hur (1899), featuring spectacular scenes - in which, onstage, the galley was wrecked, the chariot race was presented, and Christ wrought miraculous cures - was one of the most popular American plays for many years. Three motion picture versions, one made in the days of silent pictures, were extraordinarily successful.

Biography

Lew Wallace is best known today for having written the book Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, one of the best-selling books of the 19th century, which has been filmed three times, most famously the 1959 version by director/producer William Wyler, with Charlton Heston in the title role. Wallace's own life might have made a good movie -- several films, in fact -- except that no one would believe that one man could do all that he did in a lifetime, including a career that brought him into direct contact with three United States presidents, the outlaw Billy the Kid, and the ruling sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Wallace was a military hero, a diplomat, and a statesman, renowned many times over in each of those fields, and authored seven books as well as numerous articles and poems; he was a successful inventor as well. Lew Wallace was born on April 10, 1827, in Brookville, IN. His father later served as governor of the state, and Wallace spent most of his childhood in Indianapolis. He was commissioned a first lieutenant in the Mexican War, but never saw battle, and became a lawyer at the end of the 1840s, joining the bar in 1849. He was elected to the State Senate seven years later, which marked the beginning of his career in public life. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Wallace was appointed Indiana's State Adjutant General, a position from which he organized the first volunteer regiments sent from the state to join the Union Army forces. In April of 1861, he was commissioned a colonel in the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, and later received a commission as brigadier general of U.S. Volunteers. He got his major general's star after the capture of Fort Donelson, in which he played a role, and Wallace also served in the battle of Shiloh. Finally, in 1864, Wallace was given command of the Middle Department of the Union Eighth Army Corps by President Lincoln, and on July 9, 1864, four months later, he was one of the generals in command of troops in the Battle of Monocacy, slowing Confederate General Early's attack on Washington, D.C., until Union forces could secure the city's defensive perimeter. Wallace spent much of early 1865 on assignment to the United States Secret Service in Mexico, but he was recalled to Washington to serve on the commission that tried the conspirators in the assassination of President Lincoln, and was president of the court martial board that tried Henry Wirz, the commander of the notorious Andersonville prison camp.

In 1873, he published his first book, The Fair God, about the conquest of Mexico, and began attracting notice as a writer, but it was seven years later that he wrote his most enduring work, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. Written in the second half of the 1870s, the book coincided with a time in which Wallace re-entered government service, accepting an appointment from President Rutherford B. Hayes as Governor of the New Mexico Territory -- during this period, he crossed paths with one William Bonney (aka Billy the Kid), the notorious outlaw, whom he persuaded to serve as a witness for the prosecution in the trial of alleged killers in the Lincoln County Wars. In 1881, President Garfield appointed Wallace the United States Resident to the Ottoman Empire; by then, Wallace was a literary celebrity as a result of Ben-Hur, whose fans included the President himself -- it was already on its way to becoming one of the most popular books ever published in America. Wallace's tenure as the American diplomatic representative to Turkey was notably successful, for he won over the ruling Sultan Abdul Hamid II almost immediately, and he quickly rose to the top rank of the diplomatic corps. He held the post for four years, at the end of which the Sultan requested that Wallace consider joining his government, which he declined politely.

Wallace spent the next few years writing books, including a biography of President Benjamin Harrison and an account of the boyhood of Jesus. Ben-Hur continued to hold its audience and win new readers. Wallace's articles and poems were widely read, and the books of his wife, Susan, soon began joining his on readers' shelves. Wallace was also a fairly prolific inventor, and during the 1890s and early 20th century he registered patents on new devices designed to improve the function of everything from railroad ties to fishing poles. He lived long enough to see Ben-Hur become a huge stage hit, which, in turn, transformed actor William S. Hart (who originated the role of Messala) into one of the top stars on Broadway.

Wallace died in 1905 at the age of 77, but the influence of the book only grew in the years after -- in 1907, a film company released the first of three film versions of Ben-Hur, this one without the permission of Wallace's estate or his publisher, leading to a landmark United States Supreme Court case that determined for the first time that copyright protection on a literary property extended to screen adaptations. In the 1920s, MGM made Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, the first authorized screen version of the story, which was the most expensive production of the studio during the silent era and became one of the most successful movies in the studio's early history. At the end of the 1950s, William Wyler brought Wallace's book to the screen once more, in its definitive 1959 version. Thanks to that movie, Wallace's creation and characters have remained so familiar to audiences some 70 years after his death that SCTV was able to satirize the plot ("'Curly' Heston in Ben-Hur") without any need of explanation or risk that the jokes would be lost on the audience. ~ All Movie Guide

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Lew Wallace
April 10, 1827 (1827-04-10) – February 15, 1905 (1905-02-16) (aged 77)
Lew Wallace
Place of birth	Brookville, Indiana
Place of death	Crawfordsville, Indiana
Place of burial	Oak Hill Cemetery, Crawfordsville, Indiana
Allegiance	United States of America
Years of service	1846–47, 1861–65
Rank	Major General
Commands held	11th Indiana Infantry 3rd Division, Army of the Tennessee VIII Corps and the Middle Department
Battles/wars	American Civil War Battle of Fort Donelson Battle of Shiloh Siege of Corinth Battle of Monocacy
Other work	Author of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, territorial governor of New Mexico, U.S. minister to Ottoman Empire

Lewis "Lew" Wallace (April 10, 1827 – February 15, 1905) was a lawyer, governor, Union general in the American Civil War, American statesman, and author, best remembered for his historical novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.

1 Early life and career
2 Civil War
3 Post-war career
4 In popular media
5 Works
6 See also
7 References
8 Notes
9 Further reading
10 External links

Early life and career

Wallace was born in Brookville, Indiana, to David Wallace and Esther French Test Wallace. His father was a graduate of the United States Military Academy^[1] and served as lieutenant governor and Indiana Governor; his stepmother, Zerelda Gray Sanders Wallace, was a prominent temperance advocate and suffragist.

In 1836, at the age of nine, he joined his brother in Crawfordsville, Indiana where he briefly attended Wabash Preparatory School. Afterward he joined his father in Indianapolis.^[2]

Wallace was studying law at the start of the Mexican-American War in 1846. He raised a company of militia and was elected a second lieutenant in the 1st Indiana Infantry regiment. He rose to the position of regimental adjutant and the rank of first lieutenant, serving in the army of Zachary Taylor, although he personally did not participate in combat.^[3] After hostilities he was mustered out of the volunteer service on June 15, 1847.^[4] He was admitted to the bar in 1849. In 1851 he was elected prosecuting attorney of the First Congressional District.^[2]

On May 6, 1852, Wallace married Susan Arnold Elston by whom he had one son, Henry Lane Wallace (born February 17, 1853). In 1856, he was elected to the State Senate after moving his residence to Crawfordsville.

Civil War

At the start of the American Civil War, Wallace was appointed state adjutant general and helped raise troops in Indiana. On April 25, 1861, he was appointed Colonel of the 11th Indiana Infantry. After brief service in western Virginia, he was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers on September 3 and given the command of a brigade.^[4]

Forts Henry & Donelson

Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace

In February 1862, while preparing for an advance against Fort Henry, Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant sent two wooden gunboats (timberclads) down the Tennessee River for one last reconnaissance of the fort with Wallace aboard. In his report, Wallace noted an officer in the fort who was watching the Union ships as inquisitively as they were watching him. Little did Wallace know at that time the officer was Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, whom Wallace would replace as commander of Fort Henry in a few days. During the campaign Wallace's brigade was attached to Brig. Gen. Charles F. Smith's division and occupied Fort Heiman across the river from Fort Henry. Grant's superior, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, was concerned about Confederate reinforcements retaking the forts so Grant left Wallace with his brigade in command at Fort Henry while the rest of the army moved overland toward Fort Donelson.

Wallace was displeased to have been left behind so he had his troops ready to move out at a moment's notice. The order came on February 14, and when Wallace arrived along the Cumberland River, he was placed in charge of organizing a division of reinforcements arriving on transports. He was able to organize two full brigades and a third incomplete, and took up position in the center of Grant's lines besieging Fort Donelson. During the fierce Confederate assault on February 15, Wallace coolly acted on his own initiative to send a brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant to avoid a general engagement. This action was key in stabilizing the Union defensive line. After this Confederate assault had been checked, Wallace led a counter attack which retook the ground that was lost. Wallace was promoted to major general to rank from March 21.^[5]

Shiloh

Wallace's most controversial command came at the Battle of Shiloh, where he continued as a division commander under Grant. Wallace's division had been left as reserves at a place called Stoney Lonesome to the rear of the Union line. At about 6 a.m., when Grant's army was surprised and virtually routed by the sudden appearance of the Confederate States Army under Albert Sidney Johnston, Grant sent orders for Wallace to move his unit up to support the division of William Tecumseh Sherman.

Here, the controversy begins. Wallace claimed that Grant's orders were unsigned, hastily written, and overly vague. There were two paths by which Wallace could move his unit to the front, and Grant (according to Wallace) did not specify which one he should take. Wallace chose to take the upper path, which was much less used and in considerably better condition, and which would lead him to the right side of Sherman's last known position. Grant later claimed that he had specified that Wallace take the lower path, though circumstantial evidence suggests that Grant had forgotten that more than one path even existed.

Whatever the case, Wallace arrived at the end of his march only to find that Sherman had been forced back, and was no longer where Wallace thought he was. Moreover, he had been pushed back so far that Wallace now found himself in the rear of the advancing Southern troops. Nevertheless, a messenger from Grant arrived with word that Grant was wondering where Wallace was and why he had not arrived at Pittsburg Landing, where the Union was making its stand. Wallace was confused. He felt sure he could viably launch an attack from where he was and hit the Rebels in the rear. Nevertheless, he decided to turn his troops around and march back to Stoney Lonesome. For some reason, rather than realigning his troops so that the rear guard would be in the front, Wallace chose to countermarch his column; he argued that his artillery would have been greatly out of position to support the infantry when it would arrive on the field.

Wallace marched back to Stoney Lonesome, and arrived at 11 a.m. It had now taken him five hours of marching to return to where he started, with somewhat less rested troops. He then proceeded to march over the lower road to Pittsburg Landing, but the road had been left in terrible conditions by recent rainstorms and previous Union marches, so the going was extremely slow. Wallace finally arrived at Grant's position at about 7 p.m., at a time when the fighting was practically over. Grant was not pleased. Nevertheless, the Union came back to win the battle the following day. Wallace's division held the extreme right of the Union line and was the first to attack on April 7.

At first, there was little fallout from this. Wallace was the youngest general of his rank in the army and was something of a "golden boy." Soon, however, civilians in the North began to hear the news of the horrible casualties at Shiloh, and the Army needed explanations. Both Grant and his superior, Halleck, placed the blame squarely on Wallace, saying that his incompetence in moving up the reserves had nearly cost them the battle. Sherman, for his part, remained mute on the issue. Wallace was removed from his command in June and reassigned to the much less glamorous duty commanding the defense of Cincinnati in the Department of the Ohio during Braxton Bragg's incursion into Kentucky.

Later service

Wallace's most notable service came in July 1864, at the Battle of Monocacy, part of the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Although the some 5,800-man force^[6] under his command (mostly hundred-days' men amalgamated from the Middle Department) and the division of James B. Ricketts from VI Corps was defeated by Confederate General Jubal A. Early, who had some 15,000 troops, Wallace was able to delay Early's advance for an entire day toward Washington, D.C.,^[7] to the point that the city defenses had time to organize and repel Early, who arrived at Fort Stevens in Washington at around noon on July 11, two days after defeating Wallace at Monocacy, the northernmost Confederate victory of the war.

General Grant relieved Wallace of his command after learning of the defeat of Monocacy, but re-instated him two weeks later. Grant's memoirs assessed Wallace's delaying tactics at Monocacy:

If Early had been but one day earlier, he might have entered the capital before the arrival of the reinforcements I had sent. ... General Wallace contributed on this occasion by the defeat of the troops under him, a greater benefit to the cause than often falls to the lot of a commander of an equal force to render by means of a victory.^[8]

Personally, Wallace was devastated by the loss of his reputation as a result of Shiloh. He worked desperately all his life to change public opinion about his role in the battle, going so far as to literally beg Grant to "set things right" in Grant's memoirs. Grant, however, like many of the others Wallace importuned, refused to change his opinion.

Post-war career

Wallace participated in the military commission trial of the Lincoln assassination conspirators as well as the court-martial of Henry Wirz, commandant of the Andersonville prison camp.^[4] He resigned from the army on November 30, 1865.^[5] Late in the war, he directed secret efforts by the government to help the Mexicans remove the French occupation forces who had seized control of Mexico in 1864. He continued in those efforts more publicly after the war and was offered a major general's commission in the Mexican army after his resignation from the U.S. Army. Multiple promises by the Mexican revolutionaries were never delivered, which forced Wallace into deep financial debt.

Wallace held a number of important political posts during the 1870s and 1880s. He served as governor of New Mexico Territory from 1878 to 1881, and as U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire from 1881 to 1885. As governor, he offered amnesty to many men involved in the Lincoln County War; in the process he met with Billy the Kid. On March 17, 1879, the pair arranged that the Kid would act as an informant and testify against others involved in the Lincoln County War, and, in return, the Kid would be "scot free with a pardon in [his] pocket for all [his] misdeeds". But Wallace was unable to come through on his end of the bargain when faced up against the existing political forces ruling New Mexico at that time, and The Kid returned to being an outlaw. While serving as governor, Wallace completed the novel that made him famous: Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880). It grew to be the best-selling American novel of the 19th century.^[9] The book has never been out of print and has been filmed four times.

Recently, historian Victor Davis Hanson has argued that the novel was based heavily on Wallace's own life, particularly his experiences at Shiloh and the damage it did to his reputation. There are some striking similarities: the book's main character, Judah Ben-Hur accidentally causes injury to a high-ranking commander, a former boyhood friend, for which he and his family suffer no end of tribulations and calumny.

The General Lew Wallace Study in Crawfordsville, Indiana, was built from 1895 to 1898. It was near Wallace's residence, and he designed it himself. It is now a museum open to the public.^[10]

Wallace died, likely from cancer, in Crawfordsville and is buried there in Oak Hill Cemetery. A marble statue of him dressed in a military uniform by sculptor Andrew O'Connor was placed in the National Statuary Hall Collection by the state of Indiana in 1910 and is currently located in the west side of the National Statuary Hall.

In popular media

In 1960, the syndicated television series Death Valley Days featured Dayton Lummis in the role of Wallace in the episode entitled "Shadows on the Window".

In the 1973 film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Jason Robards portrays Wallace. In his discussions with Pat Garrett he is presented as a tool of corrupt business interests who want to get rid of Billy the Kid and similar outlaws in order to encourage investments in New Mexico.

Works

The Fair God; or, The Last of the 'Tzins: A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company), 1873.
Commodus: An Historical Play ([Crawfordsville, IN?]: privately published by the author), 1876. (revised and reissued again in the same year)
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (New York: Harper & Brothers), 1880.
The Boyhood of Christ (New York: Harper & Brothers), 1888.
Life of Gen. Ben Harrison (bound with Life of Hon. Levi P. Morton, by George Alfred Townsend), (Cleveland: N. G. Hamilton & Co., Publishers), 1888.
Life of Gen. Ben Harrison (Philadelphia: Hubbard Brothers, Publishers), 1888.
Life and Public Services of Hon. Benjamin Harrison, President of the U.S. With a Concise Biographical Sketch of Hon. Whitelaw Reid, Ex-Minister to France [by Murat Halstad] (Philadelphia: Edgewood Publishing Co.), 1892.
The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers), 1893. 2 volumes
The Wooing of Malkatoon [and] Commodus (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers), 1898.
Lew Wallace: An Autobiography (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers), 1906. 2 volumes

References

Compilation of Works of Art and Other Objects in the United States Capitol, Prepared by the Architect of the Capitol under the Joint Committee on the Library, United States Government Printing House, Washington, 1965.
Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885–86, ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
Gronert, Theodore G., Sugar Creek Saga: A History and Development of Montgomery County, Wabash College, 1958.
Hanson, Victor Davis, Ripples of Battle: How Wars of the Past Still Determine How We Fight, How We Live, and How We Think, Doubleday, 2003, ISBN 0-385-50400-4.
Kennedy, Frances H., ed., The Civil War Battlefield Guide, 2nd ed., Houghton Mifflin Co., 1998, ISBN 0-395-74012-6.
Wallace, Lew, Ben-Hur, Oxford World's Classics, 1998.
Warner, Ezra J., Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders, Louisiana State University Press, 1964, ISBN 0-8071-0822-7.
Woodworth, Steven E., ed., Grant's Lieutenants: From Cairo to Vicksburg, University Press of Kansas, 2001, ISBN 0-7006-1127-4.

Notes

^ Woordworth, p. 63.
^ ^a ^b Gronert, p. 71.
^ Warner, pp. 536-37; Woodworth, p. 64.
^ ^a ^b ^c Eicher, p. 551.
^ ^a ^b Eicher, p. 773.
^ Kennedy, p. 305.
^ Kennedy, p. 308.
^ Grant, Chapter LVII, p. 13.
^ Wallace, Ben-Hur Introduction, Page vii.
^ Adams, George R.; Ralph Christian (1975). Wallace, Gen. Lew, Study NRHP Nomination Form. American Assoc. for State and Local History. http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Text/76000013.pdf.

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Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Lew Wallace

Military offices
Preceded by Henry H. Lockwood	Commander of the VIII Corps (ACW) March 22, 1864 - February 1, 1865	Succeeded by William W. Morris
Preceded by Henry H. Lockwood	Commander of the VIII Corps (ACW) April 19, 1865 - August 1, 1865	Succeeded by None, end of war
Political offices
Preceded by Samuel Beach Axtell	Governor of New Mexico 1878-1881	Succeeded by Lionel Allen Sheldon

v • d • e Indiana in the American Civil War

People	William A. Bowles · Jesse D. Bright · Ambrose Burnside · Harrison H. Dodd · Andrew Humphreys · Lambdin P. Milligan · Oliver Morton · Francis A. Shoup · Lew Wallace · Indiana regiments

Places	Camp Joe Holt · Camp Morton · Jefferson General Hospital · Jeffersonville Quartermaster Depot · Military Park · New Albany National Cemetery

Battles/Raids	Battle of Corydon · Battle of Pogue's Run · Hines' Raid · Morgan's Raid · Newburgh Raid

See also: Timeline of Indiana in the American Civil War and Indianapolis in the American Civil War

v • d • e Governors of New Mexico

Territorial (1850–1912)	Bent · Calhoun · Lane · Meriwether · Rencher · Connelly · Mitchell · Pile · Giddings · Axtell · Wallace · Sheldon · Ross · Prince · Thornton · Otero · Hagerman · Curry · Mills

State (since 1912)	McDonald · C. De Baca · Lindsey · Larrazolo · M. Mechem · Hinkle · Hannett · Dillon · Seligman · Hockenhull · Tingley · Miles · Dempsey · Mabry · E. Mechem · Simms · E. Mechem · Burroughs · E. Mechem · Bolack · Campbell · Cargo · King · Apodaca · King · Anaya · Carruthers · King · Johnson · Richardson

Persondata
NAME	Wallace, Lew
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Union Army general
DATE OF BIRTH	April 10, 1827
PLACE OF BIRTH	Brookville, Indiana
DATE OF DEATH	February 15, 1905
PLACE OF DEATH	Crawfordsville, Indiana

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		Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more
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1873	The Fair God. Wallace's popular historical novel passed through twenty editions in ten years and was influenced by William Hickling Prescott's Conquest of Mexico. Its plot concerns Montezuma's failed attempts to stop Cortez from invading the Aztec empire.
1880	Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. Wallace's historical romance concerns Judah Ben-Hur, a young Jewish nobleman sent to the galleys after his Roman friend Messala wrongly accuses him of attempting to murder the Roman governor of Judea. After escaping and winning a chariot race against Messala, he frees his mother and sister from imprisonment, and they all convert to Christianity after Jesus cures the women of leprosy. The remarkably popular novel, never yet out of print, would be adapted into a play in 1899 and staged six thousand times over the next twenty-one years. Two successful film versions of the story would be made in 1931 and 1959.
1893	The Prince of India. After being appointed by President Garfield (an admirer of Wallace's Ben-Hur) as minister to Turkey (1881-1885), Wallace had labored for twelve years to complete this novel, written at Garfield's suggestion, about Constantinople, a massive 300,000-word reworking of the legend of the Wandering Jew.