Edmund Ruffin
Encyclopedia
States' rights
States' rights in U.S. politics refers to political powers reserved for the U.S. state governments rather than the federal government. It is often considered a loaded term because of its use in opposition to federally mandated racial desegregation...
, secession
Secession
Secession is the act of withdrawing from an organization, union, or especially a political entity. Threats of secession also can be a strategy for achieving more limited goals.-Secession theory:...
, and slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
and was described by opponents as one of the Fire-Eaters
Fire-Eaters
In United States history, the term Fire-Eaters refers to a group of extremist pro-slavery politicians from the South who urged the separation of southern states into a new nation, which became known as the Confederate States of America.-Impact:...
. He was an ardent supporter of the Confederacy
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
and a longstanding enemy of the North. He argued for secession for many years before the Civil War. In 1859 he attended the execution of John Brown at Charles Town, purchasing a number of the pikes with which Brown had planned to arm slaves as part of his abortive slave revolt, which started and finished at Harper's Ferry earlier that year. Ruffin sent one to the governors of all the slave-holding states as proof of violent Northern enmity against the South and slavery.
He was in South Carolina during the period immediately before its secession during the election of 1860 (according to Swanberg, because his fellow Virginians found him too extreme), writing to his son, "The time since I have been here has been the happiest of my life." Because of his strong secessionist views and the widely held belief that he fired the first shot of the Battle of Fort Sumter
Battle of Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Carolina, that started the American Civil War. Following declarations of secession by seven Southern states, South Carolina demanded that the U.S. Army abandon its facilities in Charleston Harbor. On...
, Ruffin is credited as "firing the first shot of the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
."
Pre-war life
Ruffin was born in Prince George County, Virginia. He was a descendant of William RandolphWilliam Randolph
William Randolph was a colonist and land owner who played an important role in the history and government of the Commonwealth of Virginia. He moved to Virginia sometime between 1669 and 1673, and married Mary Isham a few years later...
, 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. Ruffin was more interested in literature, and his future wife, Susan Travis, than his schoolwork.
He was a farmer and agronomist
Agronomist
An agronomist is a scientist who specializes in agronomy, which is the science of utilizing plants for food, fuel, feed, and fiber. An agronomist is an expert in agricultural and allied sciences, with the exception veterinary sciences.Agronomists deal with interactions between plants, soils, and...
. For a time, he was editor of the Farmers Register and investigated at some length the possibility of using lime
Lime (mineral)
Lime is a general term for calcium-containing inorganic materials, in which carbonates, oxides and hydroxides predominate. Strictly speaking, lime is calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide. It is also the name for a single mineral of the CaO composition, occurring very rarely...
to raise pH in peat
Peat
Peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter or histosol. Peat forms in wetland bogs, moors, muskegs, pocosins, mires, and peat swamp forests. Peat is harvested as an important source of fuel in certain parts of the world...
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
Dismal Swamp
* The Great Dismal Swamp located near Virginia and North Carolina* The Dismal Swamp located in Middlesex County New Jersey* The Dismal Swamp in Tasmania...
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
Crop rotation
Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of dissimilar types of crops in the same area in sequential seasons.Crop rotation confers various benefits to the soil. A traditional element of crop rotation is the replenishment of nitrogen through the use of green manure in sequence with cereals...
and fertilize tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
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 would be the result of the election of Republican candidates. He predicted an American Civil War in 1868 following the re-election of President William H. Seward
William H. Seward
William Henry Seward, Sr. was the 12th Governor of New York, United States Senator and the United States Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson...
, which would ultimately result in a victory for Southern states. Although most of his predictions were wrong, Ruffin did correctly predict that the war would start with an attack on Fort Sumter
Fort Sumter
Fort Sumter is a Third System masonry coastal fortification located in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. The fort is best known as the site upon which the shots initiating the American Civil War were fired, at the Battle of Fort Sumter.- Construction :...
in South Carolina.
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 fired one of the first shots on Fort Sumter. He was also the first one to enter Fort Sumter after it fell.After the surrender of Robert E. Lee
Robert E. Lee
Robert Edward Lee was a career military officer who is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War....
at Appomattox Court House
Appomattox Court House
The Appomattox Courthouse is the current courthouse in Appomattox, Virginia built in 1892. It is located in the middle of the state about three miles northwest of the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, once known as Clover Hill - home of the original Old Appomattox Court House...
in 1865, Ruffin decided to commit suicide. After contemplating the idea for weeks, he resolved that his death would neither offend God nor harm his family, but would relieve his children from the burden of caring for him. He timed his death so his oldest son would be at home to bury him, but allowing enough time that the suicide would not overshadow a nephew’s upcoming wedding.
On June 17, 1865, Ruffin went up to his study with a rifle and a forked stick. He paused to add to his diary a final malediction against "the perfidious Yankee people." Then he was called away to greet visitors who had arrived at the front door. After they left, Ruffin returned to his study and wrote a final diary entry:
- And now with my latest writing and utterance, and with what will [be] near to my latest breath, I here repeat, & would willingly proclaim, my unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule—to all political, social and business connections with Yankees, & to the perfidious, malignant, & vile Yankee race.
Immediately after writing this, Ruffin put the rifle muzzle in his mouth and used the forked stick to manipulate the trigger. The percussion cap went off without firing the rifle, and the noise alerted Ruffin's daughter-in-law. But by the time she and his son reached his room, Ruffin had already reloaded the rifle and fired a fatal shot.
Works
- Slavery and free labor, described and compared / by Edmund Ruffin. Accessed December 8, 2006.
Further reading
- Mitchell, Betty L. (circa 1981). Edmund Ruffin, a biography. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253308763