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PREFACE. 
This work, now offered to the public, has been written amid 
all the inconveniences of tent life. Its pages were penned 
during a three months’ residence of the authoress in the United 
States Camp, at Lecompton, with her husband, one of the state 
prisoners. 
If a bitterness against the “ powers that be ” betrays itself, 
let the continual clanking of sabres, and the deafening sound 
of heavy artillery in the daily drills of the soldiery, aids in 
crushing freemen in Kansas, — the outrages hourly committed 
upon peaceable and unarmed men, —the daily news of some 
friend made prisoner, or butchered with a malignity more than 
human, — the devastation of burning homes, by the connivance 
of the Governor, under the eye of the troops, and no power 
given them to save an oppressed people,—be placed in the 
balance against a severe judgment. 
If the simple recital serves to strengthen in any the love 
of liberty, or to arouse in others a hatred to tyranny, then will 
its mission have been accomplished. 
“ God give us Men ! A time like this demands 
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and ready hands ; 
Men whom the lust of office does not kill; 
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy ; 
