When CSA Lieutenant William Joseph Butler, or Billy, as family and friends know him, becomes a target of revenge for a wealthy planter on the Mississippi, Billy's father allows him to follow his brother into the army. Seventeen-year-old Billy finds his brother and regiment at Corinth, just before the battle of Shiloh in April of 1862.

War is not what young Billy imagined it to be. Educated and inquisitive, he questions much of what he sees and experiences, and Billy finds himself contemplating the true nature and validity of the war he's fighting-and losing. After his first battle, Billy...

We grow what we know. As a boy in Drew County, Arkansas, author James Willis grew into what he knew. In this memoir, he provides insight into who he was, what he did, and how his circumstances, experiences, and relationships helped him mature to the man he is today. "What Almost Did Not Happen" chronicles the details of Willis' life-his birth in 1938 in Monticello, Arkansas; being raised as an only child by his parents; growing up against the backdrop of the 1940s; his various national and international travels; his education and work as a high school teacher and university professor;...

We grow what we know. As a boy in Drew County, Arkansas, author James Willis grew into what he knew. In this memoir, he provides insight into who he was, what he did, and how his circumstances, experiences, and relationships helped him mature to the man he is today. "What Almost Did Not Happen" chronicles the details of Willis' life-his birth in 1938 in Monticello, Arkansas; being raised as an only child by his parents; growing up against the backdrop of the 1940s; his various national and international travels; his education and work as a high school teacher and university professor;...