Author. He is remembered as a 19th century American author of several novels, of which the 1881 murder mystery, "The White Rose of Memphis," was the most popular. It was reissued posthumously in 1953. His first novel was "The Life and Confession of A. J. MacCannon, Murderer of the Adcock Family" in 1845, which was based on his accounts of capturing an axe murderer. He also wrote a 131-page poem about Mexico, a travel log of Europe, and one play. With an ancestry that can be traced to men fighting alongside George Washington in the Revolutionary War, his direct line came to Mississippi in 1847. He stabbed and killed Robert H. Hindman with a Bowie knife in 1849 in self-defense and in 1851 shot and killed Erasmus Norris in a duel. Norris was Hindman's closest friend and challenged Falkner to a duel. Hindman's tombstone documents this deed. His military career started with the Mexican-American War, serving as First Lieutenant in the 2nd Regiment of Mississippi Volunteers. Gathering the same volunteers for his unit, he fought in the American Civil War with the Confederacy reaching the rank of Colonel. He saw action at the Battle of Bull Run. He was demoted in rank. He never gained a prominent role in the Confederate Army, yet he was known as "Colonel Falkner" for the rest of his life. After the war, he became a lawyer, was married twice, and wrote more novels. He had started the Ripley Railroad Company in 1862 and after the war, Ship Island and Kentucky Railroad Company. He is the great-grandfather of 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature recipient William Faulkner. Colonel Falkner was shot and killed by Richard Jackson Thurmond, a former partner at Ripley Railroads. He was elected to the state legislature, and on the night of the election, was shot, dying the next day. His violent death, along with the colorful life that he lived, furnished William Faulkner with the background for his well-known character, Colonel John Sartoris in the novels "A Rose for Emily," "Sartoris," and "Requiem for a Nun." His massive grave marker consists of a slab, an upright marker, and a huge towering base for a full statue of William Clark Falkner with a stack of books behind him.