Description

Emily Harmon is only sixteen years old when her family travels by covered wagon from Illinois to Missouri. On the trip, Emily encounters what her father calls 'remnants of war'-- social and economic ills that linger long after the battles of the Civil War. The most alarming remnant is a loose organization of criminals, bushwhackers, who terrorize innocent citizens.

They turned Gainesville, a small community in the Missouri Ozarks, into a fearful, dangerous place. In her new town, Emily and her deaf friend discover a cultish leader named Wylds using bushwhacker tactics to support his Confederate cause--to overthrow the government and return black Americans to slavery. Brimming with courage, Emily leads a team of young friends and law officers against Wylds and jails forty bushwhackers.

All the while, Emily deals with the challenges of being a young woman in the nineteenth century. This includes her mother's old-fashioned, close- minded views of he proper ambitions and behavior of a young woman.