Author Description

Three men were born in 1769 who would influence the future and each other: Michel Ney, Napoleon Bonaparte and Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington. They met only once, at Waterloo. On December 7, 1815, Marshal of France, Michel Ney, stood before a firing squad in Paris. Muskets crashed and he fell. Thirty-one years later he died in North Carolina. This is the dramatic story of Ney's probable escape from execution, of his dangerous early years in America, and his transformation into a highly respected educator. Execution Denied is also a tale of governmental deceit and attempted murder; of enormous courage and rock-solid loyalties across time and space. It imaginatively connects the many dots of historic evidence to create a carefully considered, but necessarily speculative story. In the absence of conclusive data, like DNA, we may never know the full truth. Still, I believe that this re-construction is close to what happened.