Prelude to War

Historical Context

Stephen Douglas, U. S. senator from Illinois, wanted the government to build a railroad from Chicago to San Francisco, but he was opposed in Congress by a group of southern senators who wanted the railroad to take a southern route to California.

At the same time, the south was being shut out from bringing slavery into the territories by a law passed in 1820 known as the Missouri Compromise.

Douglas proposed a new law that canceled the provision of the Missouri Compromise, which had a mandated northern boundary of slavery in it.

Douglas's proposal left the decision about a new state entering the union allowing slavery or not to a vote by its residents.

This gave the south an opportunity to expand slavery into any of the country's vast western unsettled lands.

When the law called popular sovereignty was passed into law, Kansas and Missouri burst into war.

Novel Synopsis

My novel follows the sorrows, war exploits, and love that thirteen-year-old Zeke experiences as he grows into a man and a leader of men.