Edmund Ruffin

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Edmund Ruffin

Edmund Ruffin (January 5, 1794 – June 17, 1865) was a farmer and slaveholder, a Confederate soldier, and an 1850s political activist. He advocated states' rights, secession, and slavery and was described by opponents as one of the Fire-Eaters. He was an ardent supporter of the Confederacy and an enemy of the North for its invasion of his beloved state of Virginia. Because of his strong secessionist views and the widely held belief that he fired the first shot of the Battle of Fort Sumter, Ruffin is sometimes credited as "firing the first shot of the Civil War."

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[edit] Pre-war life

Ruffin was born in Prince George County, Virginia. He was a descendant of William Randolph, the progenitor of the Randolph family. He was educated privately until studying at the College of William & Mary in 1810-1812, before being dismissed from the college.

He was a farmer and agronomist. For a time, he was editor of the Farmers Register and investigated at some length the possibility of using lime to raise pH in peat soils to improve agricultural productivity. During the pre-war years, he was interested in the origin of bogs and published several detailed descriptions of the Dismal and Blackwater Swamps. Ruffin would later be better known for his contributions to agriculture and not so much for his claim to have fired the first shot of the Civil War. Specifically, he aided the southern economy by proposing new and ingenious ways to rotate and fertilize tobacco crops such that fields could be used over and over to grow the valuable crop.

In 1860, Ruffin wrote Anticipations Of The Future, To Serve As Lessons For The Present Time. In it, he pictured what he apprehended will be the result of the election of Republican candidates. He predicted an American Civil War in 1868 following the re-election of President William Seward, which would ultimately result in a victory for southern states. Although most of his predictions are wrong, Ruffin did correctly predict that the war would start with an attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

[edit] Civil War

As the sectional hostilities which led to the Civil War grew in the 1850s, Ruffin left Virginia for South Carolina, as he was angry that Virginia had not been the first state to secede from the Union. Ruffin claimed that he fired the first shot on Fort Sumter. His story has been widely believed, but Lieutenant Henry S. Farley, commanding a battery of two mortars on James Island fired the first shot at 4:30 a.m., April 12, 1861. Ruffin did fire a shot at Fort Sumter later that morning.(Detzer 2001, pp. 269-271) The true story[citation needed] is that there were three cannons fired and Ruffin was one of the men to pull them. They are not sure which one hit Fort Sumter, but he was one of them to pull the first cannon.[citation needed] He was also the first one to enter Fort Sumter after it fell.[citation needed]

After the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House in 1865, this fiery Southerner penned these last words in his diary:

I here declare my unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule -- to all political, social and business connection with the Yankees and to the Yankee race. Would that I could impress these sentiments, in their full force, on every living Southerner and bequeath them to every one yet to be born! May such sentiments be held universally in the outraged and down-trodden South, though in silence and stillness, until the now far-distant day shall arrive for just retribution for Yankee usurpation, oppression and atrocious outrages, and for deliverance and vengeance for the now ruined, subjugated and enslaved Southern States!
...And now with my latest writing and utterance, and with what will be near my latest breath, I here repeat and would willingly proclaim my unmitigated hatred to yankee rule--to all political, social and business connections with Yankees, and the perfidious, malignant and vile Yankee race.

Shortly after writing this, Ruffin draped a Confederate flag around his shoulders and took his own life with a gunshot to the head. He stated in a suicide note that he would "rather be dead than live in a country subjugated by the Yankee race." This view is debated by his descendants. According to (Mitchell 1981), Ruffin was concerned with his uselessness both to his native state and to his family, and committed suicide to avoid being a burden to either.

[edit] Works

  • Ruffin, Edmund (1989) [1856-1865] (3 v.). The diary of Edmund Ruffin. Edited, with an introd. and notes, by William Kauffman Scarborough. With a foreword by Avery Craven.. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 0807109487. 

[edit] References

  • Detzer, David R. (2001), Allegiance: Fort Sumter, Charleston and the Beginning of the Civil War, New York: Harcourt 
  • Mitchell, Betty L. (1981), Edmund Ruffin, a Biography, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press 
  • Scheter, Barnet (2005), The Devil's Own Work, New York, NY: Walker & Company 

[edit] Further reading

  • Allmendinger, David F. (1990). Ruffin : family and reform in the Old South. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195044150. 
  • Craven, Avery (1982) [1932]. Edmund Ruffin, southerner : a study in secession (Reprint. Originally published: New York : D. Appleton, 1932. ed.). Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 0807101044. 
  • Mathew, William M. (1988). Edmund Ruffin and the crisis of slavery in the Old South : the failure of agricultural reform. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 0820310115. 
  • Mitchell, Betty L. (circa 1981). Edmund Ruffin, a biography. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253308763

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Ruffin"
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