Eliza Wigham (1820–99), Scots philanthropist and champion of women's rights, was raised as a Quaker, and from an early age was involved in fundraising and other support for the abolitionist cause in the United States. She published this short book in 1863, with the aim of countering pressure on the British government to support the Confederacy by describing 'the frightful reality of scenes daily and hourly acting in the United States … a complication of crimes and wrongs and cruelties, that make angels weep'. She takes the story of the American abolitionist movement from its beginnings in Philadelphia in 1775, through the founding of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, to the present state of hostilities between the north and the south. Interwoven with this narrative are stories of individual hardship and cruelty that make harrowing reading, and justify the use of the term 'martyrs' in the book's title.