In this compellingly off-beat peek into America's past, E. Randall Floyd examines a fascinating array of men and women who achieved fame, fortune, or notoriety because (or in spite of) their glaring peculiarities. Did you know that: Stonewall Jackson was as renowned for his odd personal habits as for his daring flank attacks? Conan the Barbarian author Robert Howard lived all his life with his mother and committed suicide immediately after she died? All of General Custer's Indian scouts survived the Battle of Little Bighorn because he'd fired them just hours before? Discover why financier Jay Gould was known as "the most hated man in America," who called social activist Jane Addams "the most dangerous woman in America," and how shy photographer's assistant Edgar Cayce achieved the title of "America's most mysterious man.