Good Words of Advice as the Noose Awaits

Quick, if you were about to be hung, what would you want to write as your last letter? Outlaw Tom Bell faced that question on October 4, 1856. Bell hadn't started out as a bad guy—started out as a Tennessee-born surgeon who served in the U.S. Army in the Mexican-American War—but those days were long gone. He was now known as the “Outlaw Doc” who terrorized California. His claim to fame was that he organized the first stagecoach robbery in the United States. Justice would say it was a go