The REV. J. W. Loguen, as a Slave and as a Freeman: A Narrative of Real Life

Every book has its preface. A book without a preface, would be like a city without a directory, or an animal with part only of the organs necessary to its existence. We have proposed to write the Biography of Rev. JERMAIN WESLEY LOGUEN, and we have given its features in the following pages accurately. We took the features from him and filled up the picture. We began with his parents, infancy, childhood, and traced him from the Southern prison through the wilderness, and Canada, and back to the United States again, to fight the enemy all through the anti-slavery war to the end of the Jerry Rescue–giving the particulars of that Rescue, with the names of persons engaged in it, on one side and on the other. The latter half of the life of Mr. Loguen stands out before the world. The other half is buried in the cimmerian night of slavery. Defective as is our taste and ability in giving the former, it will be allowed that we have been true to it, because the world has seen it. It is that portion in the folds of slavery only that may be questioned and criticised. It will be more likely to be questioned, because some few facts, circumstances, and discourse, not connected with Mr. LOGUEN’S experience with slavery, have been supplied to connect the real facts of his life, and furnish variety for the reader. Whoever reads such portion, or any portion of this book will remember, that not a fact relating to his, or his mother’s, or brother’s, or sister’s experience with slavery, is stated, that is not, literally or substantially, true. Those facts were history before they were written; and they were written because they were history.