The Iron Furnace; or, Slavery and Secession

Engraved by Samuel Sartain, Phil a .
THE IRON FURNACE: OR, SLAVERY AND SECESSION.
BY REV. JOHN H. AUGHEY, A REFUGEE FROM MISSISSIPPI.
PHILADELPHIA: WILLIAM S. & ALFRED MARTIEN. 606 CHESTNUT STREET. 1863.
Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1863, By WILLIAM S. & ALFRED MARTIEN, In the office of the Clerk of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
TO MY PERSONAL FRIENDS REV. CHARLES C. BEATTY, D.D., LL.D., OF STEUBENVILLE, OHIO, Moderator of the General Assembly of the (O.S.) Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, and long Pastor of the Church in which my parents were members, and our family worshippers; REV. WILLIAM PRATT BREED, Pastor of the West Spruce Street Presbyterian Church, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; GEORGE HAY STUART, Esq., OF PHILADELPHIA, PA., The Philanthropist, whose virtues are known and appreciated in both hemispheres, THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.

A celebrated author thus writes: “Posterity is under no obligations to a man who is not a parent, who has never planted a tree, built a house, nor written a book.” Having fulfilled all these requisites to insure the remembrance of posterity, it remains to be seen whether the author’s name shall escape oblivion.
It may be that a few years will obliterate the name affixed to this Preface from the memory of man. This thought is the cause of no concern. I shall have accomplished my purpose if I can in some degree be humbly instrumental in serving my country and my generation, by promoting the well-being of my fellow-men, and advancing the declarative glory of Almighty God.
This work was written while suffering intensely from maladies induced by the rigours of the Iron Furnace of Secession, whose sevenfold heat is reserved for the loyal citizens of the South. Let this fact be a palliation for whatever imperfections the reader may meet with in its perusal.
There are many loyal men in the southern States, who to avoid martyrdom, conceal their opinions. They are to be pitied—not severely censured. All those southern ministers and professors of religion who were eminent for piety, opposed secession till the States passed the secession ordinance. They then advocated reconstruction as long as it comported with their safety. They then, in the face of danger and death, became quiescent—not acquiescent, by any means—and they now “bide their time,” in prayerful trust that God will, in his own good time, subvert rebellion, and overthrow anarchy, by a restoration of the supremacy of constitutional law. By these, and their name is legion, my book will be warmly approved. My fellow-prisoners in the dungeon at Tupelo, who may have survived its horrors, and my fellow-sufferers in the Union cause throughout the South, will read in my narrative a transcript of their own sufferings. The loyal citizens of the whole country will be interested in learning the views of one who has been conversant with the rise and progress of secession, from its incipiency to its culmination in rebellion and treason. It will also doubtless be of general interest to learn something of the workings of the “peculiar institution,” and the various phases which it assumes in different sections of the slave States.