In 1877, a decade after the Civil War, not only was the United States gripped by a deep depression, but the country was also in the throes of nearly unimaginable violence and upheaval marking the end of the brief period known as Reconstruction and a return to white rule across the South. In 1877, celebrated historian Michael Bellesiles reveals that the fires of that fated year also fueled a hothouse of cultural and intellectual innovation, with a flamboyant cast of characters from Billy the Kid to John D. Rockefeller.