William G Eliot

The Story of Archer Alexander William G Eliot

THE following narrative was prepared without intention of publication; but I have been led to think that it may be of use, not only as a reminiscence of the "war of secession," but as a fair presentation of slavery in the Border States for the twenty or thirty years preceding the outbreak of hostilities. I am confirmed in this view by the fact, that, on submitting the manuscript to a leading publishing-house in a Northern city, it was objected to, among other reasons, as too tame to satisfy the public taste and judgment. But, from equally intelligent parties in a city farther south, the exactly opposite criticism was made, as if a too harsh judgment of slavery and slaveholders was conveyed, so that its publication would be prejudicial to those undertaking it. I therefore asked the opinion of several friends, who, like myself, had lived all those years under the shadow of the "peculiar institution," in one or other of the northern tier of the slave States, and who labored faithfully for its abolition, giving the best service of their lives to the cause of freedom, "possessing their souls in patience" while contending against what seemed to be an irresistible power. Their concurrence has confirmed me in the opinion, that, however feebly drawn, a true picture, so far as it goes, is given in these pages of the relation between master and slave, and of the social condition of slave-holding communities. Without claiming to be more than a plain story plainly told, it shows things as they were, and how they were regarded by intelligent and thoughtful people at the time.