| Edmund Ruffin |
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| CATEGORIES ABOUT EDMUND RUFFIN | |
| 1794 births | |
| ruffin, edmund | |
| 1865 deaths | |
| politicians who committed suicide | |
| people from virginia | |
| american scientists | |
| people of virginia in the american civil war | |
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Edmund Ruffin ( January 5 , 1794 - June 15 , 1865 ) was a farmer from Virginia and a Confederate soldier who, according to the apocryphal legend, fired the first shot against Fort Sumter . He was an ardent supporter of states' rights and secession and described by opponents as one of the Fire-eaters . As the sectional hostilities which led to the American Civil War grew in the 1950s, Ruufin left Virginia for South Carolina . According to dubious legend, he was given the privilege of firing the first shot against Fort Sumter on April 12 , 1861 at the outset of the American Civil War . According to historian Kenneth C. Davis , in actuality, the first shot was fired by Captain George S. James. Ruffin, however, did fire the first shot from a different battery. Despite his notoriety as a Civil War fire eater, Ruffin was also a farmer and agricultural scientist. For a time he was editor of the "Farmers Register" and investigated at some length the possibilities of using lime to raise pH in peat soils to improve agricultural productivity. During these pre-Civil War years he was interested in the origin of bogs and published several detailed descriptions of the Dismal and Blackwater Swamp s. With the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House , he committed suicide on June 17, 1865 . Defiant to the bitter end, this fiery Southerner penned these famous last words in his diary just minutes before shooting himself: 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. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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