Being a student of American history, with a leaning toward the United States' western movement, the author has made A Man Called Ants as historically accurate as possible. He has interwoven his characters with men and events that actually took place during this period. The town of River Fork did not exist, but many similar towns did, only to die and become ghost towns, or disappear entirely. The horror of the Wilderness battles are known to a great extent and the greed of the cotton merchants did happen. The tears as well as the pride of the Choctaw and other Indian nations can never be forgotten. And Judge Isaac Parker did indeed bring law and order to over seventy-four-thousand miles with only a handful of deputies. This historical novel puts one right in the room when Lincoln was talking to Grant. It gives insight into the life of an 1800s outlaw who was forever changing his name. Was Ansel Anderson Earley, known to most as Ants, an actual person? You decide.