The journals and diaries of John M. Roberts provide an intimate view of the life and thoughts of a young schoolmaster, miller, itinerant bookseller, and farmer in central Ohio in a time of rising sectional crisis and Civil War.

John Roberts liked playing with words and learned to write well. His descriptions of life in the classroom, at candlelit singing schools and debates, on madcap sleighing races and camp meeting binges - anywhere he could observe human behavior - help restore our memory of the primitive beginnings of common schools and of country and village life in a region still emerging from its pioneer past.

He hated aristocrats, abolitionists, and blacks. A Douglas Democrat before the war, he was accused of disloyalty when it came. His account of his uncivil war with his enemies reveals much about Copperhead culture in the lower Midwest. His wife's wartime diary shows an "awfel lonsom" young woman coping with household chores and the pains of motherhood. At war's end, Roberts feared Radical Republican aims but believed "our noble president, Andrew Johnson," would overcome them.