This complete, chronological registry documents the crimes, trials and deaths of the 524 people who have been legally executed in Tennessee through the end of 2009. Slaves and nine women are among those put to death for such crimes as horse theft, murder and rape. Built on the famous Espy list of United States executions, the book includes 187 previously undocumented cases; it also offers the only compilation of Tennessee's Civil War executions (both Union and Confederate, a distinction unique to Tennessee).
The text includes cultural details such as gallows sermons preached at public hangings held before 1883 and the problems (such as crowd control and denunciations of witnesses by the condemned) that caused Tennessee's move to quasi-private, and finally private, executions in 1909. It also discusses dramatic changes in Tennessee death penalty law during the 1960-2000 hiatus period and covers the complicated appellate procedures used by the six men executed since 2000, some of whom had been on death row for more than 20 years.