FIRE-EATER’S FANTASY

The irony is rich—avid abolitionist John Brown saved the life of Fire-eater Edmund Ruffin, and gave purpose to the Southerner’s life. Ruffin, a wealthy Virginia planter and slaveowner, was known for his scientific study of soil culture, undertaken to help improve and sustain the plantation economy of the South. He became a leading Fire-eater, as Southerners eager to see a separate nation built upon plantations and slavery were known, and by 1859, after decades of espousing Southern nationalism, he despaired of ever seeing his dream come true. In an October 18, 1859, diary entry, he contemplated suicide. The next day, John Brown saved Ruffin’s life. Newspapers for October 19 reported the abolitionist’s failed attempt to capture the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, orchestrated entirely by Northern men.

The news rekindled Ruffin’s hope for a Southern confederacy, and he raced to Charles Town, Va., the site of Brown’s trial, to watch it emerge.

Brown was sentenced to be hanged, and on December 2, 1,500 militamen formed two squares facing his scaffold. Ruffin evaded a strict ban on civilian spectators by becoming, for a day, the oldest cadet of the Virginia Military Institute. The condemned man scaled the steps and Brown requested, “do not detain me any longer than is absolutely necessary.” According to Ruffin, Brown displayed “complete fearlessness of & insensibility to danger and death.”

RUFFIN PENNED OVER 300 PAGES IN TWO MONTHS. HIS HISTORY OF THE FUTURE FORETOLD SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE

Weeks after John Brown’s death, Ruffin picked up a copy of Wild Southern Scenes by John Beauchamp Jones, who would later serve as a clerk for Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The book caught Ruffin’s eye because Jones’ novel anticipated secession and civil war at a time when Brown’s raid raised Ruffin’s hopes for Southern independence.

Jones’ history of the future foretold