The Confession of Jereboam O. Beauchamp

In 1826, Jereboam 0. Beauchamp was sentenced to hang for assassinating Col. Solomon P. Sharp, an older man who Beachamp claimed had seduced his young wife prior to their mar­riage. In prison, Beauchamp wrote his Confession, which was published after his hanging. The fact that his wife committed suicide in his jail cell and was buried in the same coffin with him led to the incident's wide renown as "The Kentucky Tragedy." In addition, the Confession was extensively reprinted in cheap pamphlets during the nineteenth century, and it has inspired a number of novels, plays, short stories, and folk songs, the best known of which are Edgar Allan Poe's Politian, William Gilmore Simms's Charlemont and Beauchampe, and Robert Penn Warren's World Enough and Time.