1909. Introduction by Theodore Spencer. From the Preface: This book is not a novel, but the recollections of scenes and episodes of my early life in Illinois and Missouri, the writing of which has been a labour of love. A cosmopolitan life in the different capitals of Europe during a period of forty years has not sufficed to alienate the romance and memory of those wonderful times. In looking back I have come to the conclusion that the power displayed by the most influential preachers and politicians of the ante-bellum days in Illinois was a power emanating from the spiritual side of life, and I have done my best to depict the silences that belonged to the prairies, for out of those silences came the voices of preacher and prophet and a host of workers and heroes in the great War of Secession. In 1863 President Lincoln issued his famous proclamation for the emancipation of the slaves, and with it the old order passed away never to return.