Troubled State is the private Civil War journals of Franklin Archibald Dick, a St. Louis attorney and brother-in-law of Union Major General Frank Blair, Jr, who was concerned about keeping Missouri pro-Union during the turbulent Civil War years. Franklin Dick's perspective of important historical events include the early Camp Jackson incident when he was Captain Nathaniel Lyon's assistant adjutant general, and when he served as Missouri's provost marshal general under Major General Samuel Curtis. After the war, Franklin Dick practiced law with Montgomery Blair, President Lincoln's postmaster general.