wilderness (wilds) then, now

Found this one while browsing old photocopies from the Army and Navy Chronicle. Installment "No. XI" of the series Notes and Reminiscences of an Officer of the Army (October 29, 1840) by "F. R. D." begins to chronicle the Black Hawk War, mostly corresponding (but with some changes) to "Chapter XXI" in the magazine series "Scenes and Adventures in the Army" in the Southern Literary Messenger Volume 8 (October 1842) pages 655-658. 

Compare this revised version in the 1842 Southern Literary Messenger

We passed over a fine country of woods and prairie interspersed; but the soil was rich and soft; and our progress with heavy laden wagons was tedious.  -- October 1842

to the original in the 1840 Army and Navy Chronicle. Changes include the deletion of  everything after the semi-colon, including highlighted words:

We marched over a pretty country, with a pleasant succession of woods and prairies, so advantageous for farming; a wilderness then, now smiling settlements, with four-horse stages running through, and very far beyond. -- Army and Navy Chronicle, October 29, 1840

Then this, from the prose introduction to Melville's "John Marr":

The remnant of Indians thereabout--all but exterminated in their recent and final war with regular white troops, a war waged by the Red men for their native soil and natural rights--had been coerced into the occupancy of wilds not very far beyond the Mississippi--wilds then, but now the seats of municipalities and States.  -- John Marr

Thus we have a rich set of correspondences--not only the same structure and pacing of

wilderness, wilds then / now

but also the probable geographical place and historical context here are the same for Melville as for Cooke: Galena, Illinois  and the Black Hawk War of 1832.