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Edmund Ruffin (1794–1865)
Most people in this world are not remembered for anything after they are
gone. A few people manage to affect the world such that they are remembered for
one thing.
Edmund Ruffin is a man that is remembered for two things.
Edmund Ruffin was born in Prince George County, Virginia on January 5, 1794.
He was a farmer and innovative agriculturist. As a noted farmer, he became
editor of the "Farmer’s Register", and investigated methods to improve
agricultural crop yields. His research interests also included bogs and swamps.
Despite his distinguished research, he is not remembered for his advances in
agricultural science.
As secessionist tensions grew in the United States in the 1850’s, Ruffin was
an ardent supporter of states’ rights and was a proponent of Secession. He
became known as one of the Southern "Fire-Eaters", along with Robert Rhett,
Louis Wigfall and William Yancey. The famed Fire-Eaters were able to fan the
flames of Southern Independence, which led to the secession of South Carolina in
1860, and the formation of the Confederate States of America. Northern sentiment
ran so strong against Mr. Ruffin that on August 1, 1862 two regiments of Union
regulars from General Fitz-John Porter’s corps crossed the river by Harrison’s
Landing and, under the cover of guns on the steamer Mahaska, set Ruffin’s house
on fire. It is reported that cheers rent the air from Union Troops as the great
Rebel’s house burned to the ground. Despite all this, Edmund Ruffin is not
remembered as the Father of the Confederacy, or the leader of the secession
movement.
It is for the events of the evening of April 11, 1861 that Mr. Ruffin will be
remembered. Major Robert Anderson and some 85 US Soldiers and Officers (12 of
whom were musicians) were hunkered down in Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor,
surrounded by approximately 7,000 Confederate troops under the command of
Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard. Early in the morning hours of April 12,
1861 the fateful orders came down from Beauregard; and the honor of initiating
those orders fell on a 67 year old honorary member of the Palmetto Guards . . .
Mr. Edmund Ruffin. At about 4:30 AM on April 12, Edmund Ruffin fired the first
cannon shot at Fort Sumter, and the Civil War was officially underway.
Four long years later, with countless losses on both sides, Ruffin received
word that General Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox, and that all was lost. The dream
that was the Confederacy was officially over. Upon receiving the news, Ruffin
sat at his desk and penned these words:
"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.
With the completion of the letter, Mr. Ruffin put down his pen, picked up his
revolver, and shot himself in the head.
As such, Mr. Ruffin is remembered for two things . . . firing the first shot,
and the last shot of the Civil War.
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