Letter from William Preston to his son Robert Wickliffe Preston,
November 28, 1861
Bowling Green, KY

William Preston (1816-1887) was from Louisville, Kentucky. He was from a prestigious family: some of his relations included brother-in-law General Albert Sidney Johnston, cousins Vice-President John C. Breckinridge and Senator Thomas Hart, and uncles Secretary of War John Floyd, Governor James P. Preston, and Governor James McDowell. In 1840 he married a wealthy Lexington heiress who was also his third cousin, Margaret Preston Wickliffe. They had six living children (for the family tree, see Howard-Wickliffe-Preston Genealogy Website). He served in the Mexican War, and during the 1850s he took leadership roles in state (1849 constitutional convention) and national politics (House of Representatives). In 1858 President James Buchanan appointed him ambassador to Spain, and his family moved to Madrid. They did not return to Kentucky until July of 1861, whereupon Preston became involved in the unsuccessful peace process. When the Ky. legislature established the Home Guards to counterbalance the official State Guard militia and began arresting Southern sympathizers, Preston left in mid September 1861 for the Russellville conventions in Logan County where he helped establish the Confederate State Government of Kentucky. Together with Henry C. Burnett & William E. Simms, Preston would go to Richmond as commissioner to negotiate the alliance with the Confederate States of America. He wrote from Bowling Green to his only son, Robert Wickliffe Preston (age 11), to explain why he had joined the secession movement and eventually to fight for the Confederacy.
Bowling green Ky
28 Nov. 1861

My Dear Son,
I am away from you now but you are never away from my heart. When you grow older you will know how the war keeps me away from you and your mother and sisters, and how wicked men have made the people angry and unhappy and destroyed a great country. We were rich & will be poor, happy & will be unhappy and many mothers will see their children killed, because the Northern people would not let us alone. Many Northern people have already been killed & many homes darkened with mourning.

I am compelled either to join in this war against our friends, or see my state give money to carry it on, or give money to them to carry on this cruel and useless war, or to fly from you and your mother & little sisters. This is very hard, but I think it is better to bear banishment and leave you all than to support the State in carrying on this war, or in giving money to kill the Southern people. This then is the reason I am now far away from you. God may never permit me to see you again, but I wish you to love and obey your dear mother whom I love far better than life & to be a support and comfort to her. You must too be good and kind to your sisters, & gentle.

I wish you also dear Wick to study Latin well.

I will never cease to think of you & pray God for you constantly, and fervently.

Your devoted father

W. Preston

 

Robt Wickliffe Preston
Lexington, KY.

Box 54, folder 8, Wickliffe-Preston Family Papers, University of Kentucky Special Collections and Archives.
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