One hundred thirty years ago, the governor of New Mexico took a most unusual personal leave. He had to travel to New York to oversee the publication of his novel. Although the trip interrupted a troubled tenure, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ would become a big success, a best-seller second only to the Bible.

For Gen. Lew Wallace, however, the road to success had been a bumpy one. Literally.

Wallace arrived in Santa Fe in fall 1878 at the behest of President Rutherford B. Hayes. The railroad had yet to reach the capital city, and Wallace was forced to take a carriage ride on a buckboard road. He compared the experience to torture. Wallace's first days in Santa Fe provided little more comfort than the carriage. The Santa Fe Ring, at the height of its power, showed little affection for Wallace, who had replaced one of their own, Samuel Axtell, as territorial governor.

Like the men who ran the ring, Wallace emerged from the Civil War hoping to profit from a reunited nation. After serving on the Lincoln assassination tribunal and failing in repeated attempts at federal office, Wallace returned to his native Indiana to practice law. The attorney's life was a poor fit for the adventurous Wallace.

On the strength of his military career, Wallace was the president's pick to govern the territory of New Mexico. Washington hoped he could use his military experience to quell the violence in Lincoln County that by 1878 had become a national embarrassment. The violence that became known as the Lincoln County War had arisen several years earlier as an enterprising Briton, John Tunstall, moved to Lincoln and attempted to gain a foothold in the trade-goods market. Economic competition spawned physical warfare.

Wallace chose to stop the fighting by issuing a general pardon to the men who had participated in the violence. While the pardon did little to end the war, it inadvertently brought about the last days of a young ranch hand known as William H. Bonney, Billy the Kid. Bonney, finding himself the only Lincoln County warrior not excused by the pardon, still faced charges for crimes committed during the fighting.

Bonney tried to cut a deal with Wallace in the hopes that his record would be erased. What began as a simple offer of help in a solitary letter soon evolved into a lengthened correspondence and bred the oddest set of pen pals in the history of the United States.

Up until his death in 1881, Bonney continued to write Wallace in the hopes that the governor might eventually make good on the agreed terms. For his part, Bonney had met with Wallace and informed on other criminals operating in the Lincoln County area. He had also agreed to testify in court.

But, rather than grant the promised pardon, Wallace decided to put a bounty on Bonney's head. By the time Pat Garrett finally got Bonney in Fort Sumner, Wallace was far from Santa Fe in Paris, where he and his wife had stopped on their way to his diplomatic post in Turkey.

The ambassadorship came to Wallace, in fact, as something of a pardon. Wallace hated the nearly three years he spent in New Mexico. He arrived with hopes of mining profits and of quick completion of his novel. The book took him longer than expected as he slaved away into the night at the Palace of the Governors. His mines produced little. Fortunately, Ben-Hur was a gold strike.

President James Garfield viewed the book as fit reason to send Wallace to Turkey. Fame and riches eventually followed as the novel climbed the best-seller lists.

Variations on the novel appeared soon on the stage in New York, where directors used live horses on stage to recreate the pivotal chariot race. The action drew crowds. The new medium of film offered entrepreneurs an opportunity to cash in on the popularity of the novel. Three films based on Wallace's novel were produced, including the Charlton Heston blockbuster made 51 years ago.

Although Santa Fe has been home to more than its fair share of notable authors, Lew Wallace remains one of its most successful. Unfortunately, when Wallace used his powers of the pen to describe the capital city, he could only write:

"Every calculation based on experience elsewhere fails in New Mexico."

Jason Strykowski is doctoral candidate at The University of New Mexico.