This is not just another book on slavery, but rather on its demise, in Southeast Missouri during the Civil War. It also is not a chronology of the Civil War in that region. However, without the Civil War and the Military, slavery would have continued. This opinion is sustained by decades of political maneuvering on both the State and Federal levels which actually strengthened the institution. Too, during the War, when the Southern Slave States were not represented in the US Congress, northern politicians, including President Lincoln, could not agree on how to dismantle the system. It is wondered, that if the Conflict had ended after a year or had the Seceding States voted to return to the Union, if not slavery would have been continued unabated.