On Saturday, October 18, at 4:00 p.m., at the Mission Valley Branch Library, Author Tonya Graham McQuade—whose family roots go deep in Missouri— will discuss Missouri’s interesting Civil War history and share excerpts from her book, A State Divided: The Civil War Letters of James Calaway Hale and Benjamin Petree of Andrew County, Missouri, 1862-1865.

The book includes fifty previously unpublished Civil War letters written by two of her ancestors and explains the context in which these two Missouri soldiers and their families found themselves living. Both before and during the Civil War, they watched discord, destruction, and bloodshed erupt all around them. Overall, Missouri suffered more than 1,000 engagements on its soil. Many of those involved guerrilla warfare, including the Centralia Massacre and Battle of Centralia, which occurred Sept. 27, 1864. As it turns out, Tonya discovered she has family ties to Centralia on both the Union and Confederate sides.

The Mission Valley Branch Library is located at 2123 Fenton Pkwy, San Diego, CA.