Walt Bachman is an independent historian. He is a graduate of the University of Minnesota and received law degrees from Oxford University (as a Rhodes Scholar) and from Stanford University.  He was a trial lawyer for 22 years in Minnesota and is the author of Law v. Life, a book about the realities of the modern legal profession.  For the past ten years, he has researched and written about Minnesota history.   His biography of a Minnesota slave, Northern Slave, Black Dakota: The Life and Times of Joseph Godfrey, was published in February 2013.  He is currently writing a history documenting the widespread use of slaves by officers of the U.S. Army.