Ruffin, Edmund (1794-1865), agricultural reformer, proslavery ideologue, and Southern nationalist. Born into a prominent Tidewater Virginia planter family, Ruffin earned wide acclaim during the first half of the nineteenth century as the preeminent agricultural reformer in the Old South.

When his inherited lands on the James River proved unresponsive to traditional ameliorative practices, Ruffin, in 1818, inaugurated a series of experiments with marl a shell-like deposit containing calcium carbonate which neutralized soil acidity and enabled sterile soils to become once again productive. When the results proved efficacious, he published his findings, first in An Essay on Cakareous Manures (1832) and then in his celebrated agricultural journal, the Farmers' Register (1833-1842). After conducting an agricultural survey of South Carolina at the request of Governor James H. Hammond, Ruffin acquired a new tract of land on the Pamunkey River, naming it appropriately Marlbourne, and proceeded to transform it into a model estate. Subsequently, he was instrumental in reviving the Virginia State Agricultural Society and was four times elected president of that body.

Upon retiring from the management of his agricultural enterprises in the mid-1850s, Ruffin turned his attention to politics. Strongly opinionated, little disposed to compromise, and sharply critical of democracy, Ruffin had eschewed active participation in politics, serving only an abbreviated term as state senator in the 1820s. By mid-century, however, he, like many others in his class, had become alarmed by the increasingly intemperate attacks upon Southern institutions by the abolitionists and their political allies in the North. Sufficiently moderate in 1831 to have interceded on behalf of a black wrongfully accused of complicity in the Nat Turner revolt, Ruffin later assumed an inflexible proslavery posture. Convinced that slavery was the very cornerstone of Southern society and that its future could not be guaranteed within the existing Union, Ruffin became an outspoken secessionist.

Although he had adopted a secessionist stance at least as early as 1850, it was during the last four years of the antebellum period that Ruffin's crusade for disunion became most intense. Lacking the oratorical skills of fellow fire-eater William Lowndes Yancey or the political influence of Robert Barnwell Rhett, Sr., Ruffin resorted instead to personal conversation and the power of his written prose to influence the course of events. Just as he had earlier propagated the gospel of marl so now he proselytized for his dream of Southern independence.

Commercial Convention in Montgomery, on trains and steamboats-everywhere he traveled-Ruffin was indefatigable in his effort to persuade Southerners that. their only salvation lay in separate nationhood. Even more significant were his voluminous writings. In addition to numerous articles, and editorials prepared for newspapers in Richmond and Charleston, these included three lengthy pamphlets and two major articles, one of them serialized in De Bow's Review, as well as a 426-page political novel, Anticipations of the Future, .which had been inspired by John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry..

Despite such Herculean efforts, Ruffin appears to have had only minimal influence in effecting secession. Certainly he had little in his home state of Virginia, as he later bitterly lamented. His writings, prolific as they were, seem to have attracted little gospel of marl so now he proselytized for his dream of Southern independence. In hotel lobbies from Washington to Charleston, at Virginia summer resorts, at the Southern notice from the public, and his attempt in 1858, in concert with Yancey, to mobilize public opinion, behind the secessionist cause through a League of United Southerners proved ineffectual. Still, he remained active and highly visible. Excited by the events at Harpers Ferry, he enlisted in the Corps of Cadets of the Virginia Military Institute for one day in order to witness the execution of Brown. Subsequently, he dispatched pikes seized from the conspirators to the governors of all slaveholding states with the injunction that they be displayed as a "sample of the favors designed for us by our Northern Brethren."

It was only after the sectional crisis reached a climax in 1860 and 1861 that Ruffin finally received the public adulation so long denied him. Although he began to receive compliments and honors wherever he traveled outside of Virginia, it was in South Carolina that he was most appreciated. When that state became the first to secede he was there to participate in the celebration, and, on the eve of Abraham Lincoln's inauguration, he again departed for Charleston, vowing never to return to his native state until it joined the Confederacy. With his destiny now bound inextricably to that of his adopted state, it was altogether fitting that the venerable Ruffin was accorded the honor of firing the first artillery shot against Fort Sumter-a distinction, that, though still controversial, was recognized generally by his contemporaries on both sides.

The notoriety engendered by Ruffin's role in the Sumter engagement elevated him to the status of a popular hero in the South. Rejoining his South Carolina unit, the Palmetto Guard, in time for the Manassas campaign, the aging fire-eater once again performed symbolic military service for his beloved Confederacy, firing several artillery rounds at the fleeing Federals as they retreated over the suspension bridge at Cub Run. Plagued, however, physical infirmities and wartime tribulations soon reduced him reduced to the role of a passive observer of the momentous conflict he had helped to instigate. Family properties were pillaged during the successive Federal campaigns against Richmond, and Ruffin was compelled to seek refuge as an exile, settling eventually at Redmoor, a small farm situated about thirty-five miles west of the capital. Despite the deteriorating military situation, the increasingly embittered Ruffin remained steadfast in his commitment to the cause of Southern independence until that dream was shattered at nearby Appomattox.

With the demise of the Confederacy, Ruffin no longer had any reason to live. Despondent over the deaths of family members and his own declining health, reduced to virtual destitution by enemy depredations during the war, and fearful lest he become both a political and a pecuniary burden to his eldest son, Ruffin had long contemplated suicide. After the fall of Richmond his resolve became fixed, and for. more than two months he planned methodically for the act of self-destruction, which he carried out shortly after noon on June 17, 1865. Thus did Ruffin, despite numerous reverses and disappointments, once again assume command of his own destiny. Contrary to popular belief, Ruffin did not wrap himself in a Confederate flag before firing the shot that ended his life.