Home - Michael P. Rucker

Most Civil War histories focus on the performance of top-level generals. However, it was the individual officers below them who actually led the troops to enact the orders. Some of these were remarkably effective. One such officer was Edmund Winchester Rucker. He was a force to be reckoned with, both during the Civil War and in his post war business ventures.

During the early months of the Civil War Dr. William Parks Rucker managed to become one of the most despised individuals in the South – and a hero to those who supported the Union. He was a slave owner who fiercely opposed the Confederacy. His initial act to antagonize Southern supporters was to stab to death a man who challenged his outspoken support for the Union. Following that incident, he led Union troops to burn a bridge of Virginia Central Railroad which was important to the Confederates war effort.

The "Meanest" Synopsis

During the campaign by the United States Army to capture the upper Mississippi River, Rucker and his faithful Confederate artillerists, with only three operable cannons, held off the entire Federal fleet which possessed 105 heavy guns. Later, in East Tennessee, Rucker’s duties included punishing saboteurs and conscripting unwilling local citizens into the Confederate Army. He described these assignments as: “The meanest and damnest [sic] duty a soldier had to perform.”

Any Civil War enthusiast will enjoy this work. Any Civil War library will be improved by its addition.

- BRIG. GEN. PARKER HILLS, RET.

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What Doesn’t Kill Me – The Memoirs of Michael Price Rucker

This book is primarily because of my granddaughters’ insistence that I write what they found to be amusing and interesting stories of my life. Family and friends who proofread for me reported back that it was a ‘good read.’

It is all true and covers the broad range of experiences of my life since early childhood. As I worked on it, other family members asked that I include stories about them or others.

I have this idea that, someday far into the future, an anthropologist will come across this tome and muse “Hmmm! This is some interesting information about life in the United States during the later twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.”

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Welcome to the World of Terry the Tractor

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Michael P. Rucker

When I started writing books for children, I turned out a new book every year for twenty years. Why? Because I like kids and I received positive feedback about the stories and the messages they brought to children. – And, the stories came easily into my mind. During this time, I began researching two interesting Civil War officers whose exploits demanded exploration. Learn More