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Missourians found themselves in a difficult position during the Civil War, as a border slave state that never seceded from the Union. Approximately 110,000 Missourians opted to serve with Union armies, but nearly 40,000 Missouri men volunteered for service in the Confederate forces. Gangs of these Confederate sympathizers, or bushwhackers as they became known, terrorized Union supporters throughou... More

Missourians found themselves in a difficult position during the Civil War, as a border slave state that never seceded from the Union. Approximately 110,000 Missourians opted to serve with Union armies, but nearly 40,000 Missouri men volunteered for service in the Confederate forces. Gangs of these Confederate sympathizers, or bushwhackers as they became known, terrorized Union supporters throughout the state, ransacking and torching the Union supporters' homes, stealing their livestock, and sometimes even murdering the staunchest Union defenders.

Fourteen-year-old Jacob Knight returns from the cornfield one day to find bushwhackers terrorizing his family. At the insistence of his mother, Jacob and his seven year old sister, Eliza, flee the house for safety. When the two young people dare to return home the following morning, their family is nowhere to be found and their home is burnt to the ground. Hoping that the rest of their family survived, Jacob and Eliza take the family's one remaining horse and journey north, toward their aunt's home in Iowa in hopes of finding their family along the way. After traveling for several days, the children are befriended and given shelter by a kind young mother, Maggie, who was left by her husband, a bushwhacker. The children stay with Maggie throughout the winter, helping her with the farm chores, and with her infant son. The new "family" is growing comfortable with each other until a ragged stranger enters their lives. Who is this man? What will he do to Jacob and Eliza? Will the children ever find out if their family survived?

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