"Historical fiction as written by Philip Van Doren Stern is much more than a literary exercise tinctured with the dramatic past. It is the historical record cast in excellent prose style in order to recreate in as lifelike manner as possible the long-ago. Historians, no doubt, will remember the author of The Drums of Morning as the individual who published The Man Who Killed Lincoln and The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln. Stern's interest in Lincoln led him into the slavery controversy and prompted him to investigate the abolitionist movement...And the volume is admirable for both the historian and the student who wish to follow in dramatic fashion the anti-slavery movement in the United States from its early days until the close of the Civil War.
The narrative itself is of simple structure. Jonathan Bradford whose father was killed in Alton, Illinois, by a mob seeking to destroy Lovejoy's printing press determines to devote his life to the abolition of slavery. In order to see the slave system at its worst Bradford journeys through the cotton states in 1852-1853. His adventures form the body of the novel. But the book cannot be dismissed merely as a picaresque novel. The characters emerge as mature, well-rounded figures illuminating and emphasizing the broad sweep of history. And it is in the depiction of the tumbling rush of events which lead to the freeing of the slaves that the story moves most swiftly, catching the reader in the tumult over the fugitive slave Anthony Burns, whose return to bondage all Boston rose to protest; in the tragic grandeur of John Brown's plans for his Harper's Ferry raid; in the agony of the long months' bombardment of Charleston ; in the epic sufferings of the Union soldiers at the notorious Andersonville prison; in the day-in and day-out suspense of the Underground Railroad movement; and in the work of the valiant minority of Americans who risked their lives to free their fellow men.-Jrl. of American History