General Grant himself visited Bloomfield and recommended that a major fort be constructed there. In the latter months of the Civil War, this fort was constructed on the ruins of Bloomfield's courthouse square. All the profits from two subsequent printings by the Stoddard County Historical Society went to the society in which I served as secretary for several years. In addition to local interest, calls and letters have continued to come in from other states requesting a copy. The one most certain thing in this life is that everything changes in time.
History is the story of mankind's march through that time.
As an individual we are what our memory consists of. As a town, a county, a nation, we are the collective memory of all. Without our past we would not know who or what we are or where we came from. In this third printing I decided against any revisions or additions and elected to publish it in its original form except for the addition of a table of contents.