Fourth book in the young reader's Civil War series Blue and Gray - Afloat. William Taylor Adams wrote many adventure stories for young readers under the pseudonym Oliver Optic

"STAND BY THE UNION" is the fourth of "The Blue and Gray Series." As in the preceding volumes of the series, the incidents of the story are located in the midst of the war of the Rebellion, now dating back nearly thirty years, or before any of my younger readers were born. To those who lived two days in one through that eventful and anxious period, sometimes trembling for the fate of the nation, but always sustained by the faith and the hope through which the final victory was won, it seems hardly possible that so many years have flowed into the vast ocean of the past since that terrible conflict was raging over so large a portion of our now united country.

William Taylor Adams (July 30, 1822 – March 27, 1897), pseudonym Oliver Optic, was a noted academic, author, and a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Adams became a teacher in the Lower Road School in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1843, he resigned from his position as master of the school in 1846 in order to assist his father and brother in the management of their new hotel in Boston, the Adams House hotel. Adams decided that he preferred teaching so in 1848 he returned to teaching this time at the Boylston School in Boston. In 1860, Adams was promoted to the position of master of the Boylston School. When the Bowditch School was founded, Adams transferred to that school as its master, a position he held until he resigned from teaching in 1865. This experience naturally brought him closely into contact with boys, and he learned much of what interested them, which had a good

deal to do with his eventual success as an author. Extensive travel abroad and a deep knowledge of boats, farming, and practical mechanics were other factors that gave his works reality