In American history, the Fire-Eaters were a loosely aligned group of radical pro- secession Democrats in the antebellum South who urged the separation of the slave states into a new nation, in which chattel slavery and a distinctive “Southern civilization” would be preserved. Some sought to revive American participation in the Atlantic slave trade , which had been illegal since 1808 . After eleven southern states declared independence from the United States in 1861, several Fire-Eaters were outspoken critics of the new Confederate government during the American Civil War .
50-511: Dubbed “Fire-Eaters” by critics, the group was not a cohesive political faction but a collection of radical democrats well known for their extreme rhetoric and nationalist demands for an independent southern nation. Among the best known Fire-Eaters were Edmund Ruffin , Robert Rhett , Louis T. Wigfall , and William Lowndes Yancey . By urging secession in the South, the Fire-Eaters aggravated
100-454: A Fire Eater because he advocated secession and armed conflict in defense of the South. Noting how his audience had changed, he wrote in his diary in January 1859, "I have had more notice taken on my late pamphlet [on slavery] than on anything I ever wrote before." In 1859, Ruffin traveled to attend the execution of John Brown at Charles Town, Virginia (now West Virginia ), following
150-607: A book on his findings for improving soils. He has since become known as "the father of soil science " in the United States. Ruffin was born on January 5, 1794, at Evergreen Plantation just east of Hopewell in Prince George County, Virginia . A descendant of William Randolph , he was born into Virginia's planter class aristocracy and inherited large tracts of land along the James River . His father
200-605: A chain reaction that led directly to the formation of the Confederate States of America and the Civil War . Their influence waned quickly after the start of major fighting. Notes Bibliography Edmund Ruffin Edmund Ruffin III (January 5, 1794 – June 17, 1865) was a wealthy Virginia planter, amateur soil scientist, and political activist best known as an early advocate for secession of
250-777: A history of the dividing line twixt Virginia and North Carolina: a Journey to the Land of Eden A.D. 1733 and a Progress to the Mines. (Published in Petersburg, Virginia in 1841 and in Albany, New York in 2 volumes in 1866). Many in the group argued "stewardship" justified slavery, influenced by the evangelical tradition that generated reform in the North as well, and published their recommendations and "jeremiads" in short-lived periodicals and felt unjustly neglected by fellow Southerners. For
300-611: A more refined understanding of soil. In 1998, the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB) replaced the FAO soil classification as the international soil classification system. The currently valid version of WRB is the 4th edition, 2022. The FAO soil classification, in turn, borrowed from modern soil classification concepts, including USDA soil taxonomy . WRB is based mainly on soil morphology as an expression of pedogenesis . A major difference with USDA soil taxonomy
350-888: A plantation that Ruffin inherited from his namesake grandfather, at Coggin's Point, along the James River in Prince George County, which was noted as the departure point of Benedict Arnold after he switched allegiances and raided along the James River (including Richmond ) in 1781. They had eleven children before Susan Ruffin died in 1846. Most of the children died before their father did. Rebecca Ruffin Bland (b. 1823), Jane Ruffin Dupuy (b. 1829), and Ella Ruffin (b. 1832) all died in 1855. Elizabeth Ruffin Sayre (b. 1821) died in 1860, and Ann Ruffin (b. 1844) died in 1863 during
400-405: A product of chemical transformations of rocks, a dead substrate from which plants derive nutritious elements. Soil and bedrock were in fact equated. Dokuchaev considers the soil as a natural body having its own genesis and its own history of development, a body with complex and multiform processes taking place within it. The soil is considered as different from bedrock. The latter becomes soil under
450-401: A rifle and a forked stick. He was called away to greet visitors at the front door. After they left, Ruffin returned to write 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
500-656: A time in the 1840s, Ruffin was editor of the Farmers Register . He did serious studies of the possibility of using lime to raise pH in peat soils. Ruffin presented a paper, later expanded into an article for American Farmer and eventually into the highly influential book An Essay on Calcareous Manures (1852). He explained how applications of calcareous earths ( marl ) had reduced soil acidity and improved yields of mixed crops of corn and wheat on his land, which had been worn out by two centuries of tobacco farming. These works and others have led to his being called
550-478: A world with a growing population, possible future water crisis , increasing per capita food consumption , and land degradation . Soil occupies the pedosphere , one of Earth's spheres that the geosciences use to organize the Earth conceptually. This is the conceptual perspective of pedology and edaphology , the two main branches of soil science. Pedology is the study of soil in its natural setting. Edaphology
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#1732765538310600-769: Is classifying texture as heavy or light. Light soil content and better structure take less effort to turn and cultivate. Light soils do not necessarily weigh less than heavy soils on an air dry basis, nor do they have more porosity . The earliest known soil classification system comes from China, appearing in the book Yu Gong (5th century BCE), where the soil was divided into three categories and nine classes, depending on its color, texture and hydrology. Contemporaries Friedrich Albert Fallou (the German founder of modern soil science) and Vasily Dokuchaev (the Russian founder of modern soil science) are both credited with being among
650-446: Is related to the various associations concerned. Indeed, engineers, agronomists , chemists , geologists , physical geographers , ecologists , biologists , microbiologists , silviculturists , sanitarians , archaeologists , and specialists in regional planning , all contribute to further knowledge of soils and the advancement of the soil sciences. Soil scientists have raised concerns about how to preserve soil and arable land in
700-631: Is that soil climate is not part of the system, except insofar as climate influences soil profile characteristics. Many other classification schemes exist, including vernacular systems. The structure in vernacular systems is either nominal (giving unique names to soils or landscapes) or descriptive (naming soils by their characteristics such as red, hot, fat, or sandy). Soils are distinguished by obvious characteristics, such as physical appearance (e.g., color , texture , landscape position), performance (e.g., production capability, flooding), and accompanying vegetation. A vernacular distinction familiar to many
750-468: Is the study of soil in relation to soil-dependent uses. Both branches apply a combination of soil physics , soil chemistry , and soil biology . Due to the numerous interactions between the biosphere , atmosphere and hydrosphere that are hosted within the pedosphere, more integrated, less soil-centric concepts are also valuable. Many concepts essential to understanding soil come from individuals not identifiable strictly as soil scientists. This highlights
800-513: The London Times from 1864 to 1870 from a fictional English resident in the United States, he played out the result of the election of Republican candidates in the United States. He predicted an American civil war in 1868 that would follow the re-election of President William H. Seward , and predicted that it would ultimately result in a victory for Southern states. Although most of his predictions were wrong, Ruffin did correctly predict that
850-780: The Army of the Potomac under General Ulysses S. Grant stealthily crossed the James River into Prince George over a hastily constructed pontoon bridge a few miles east of Beechwood at Flowerdew Hundred , Ruffin allegedly escaped capture by hiding under a load of hay in a wagon driven by one of his slaves. He fled west to the relative safety of another son's plantation home, Redmoor, in Confederate-held territory west of Petersburg in Amelia County . Several of Ruffin's plantations were occupied and plundered by Union forces during
900-670: The Earth's crust ". Academically, soil scientists tend to be drawn to one of five areas of specialization: microbiology , pedology , edaphology , physics , or chemistry . Yet the work specifics are very much dictated by the challenges facing our civilization's desire to sustain the land that supports it, and the distinctions between the sub-disciplines of soil science often blur in the process. Soil science professionals commonly stay current in soil chemistry, soil physics, soil microbiology, pedology, and applied soil science in related disciplines. One exciting effort drawing in soil scientists in
950-507: The abolitionist 's abortive slave revolt at Harper's Ferry earlier that year. To gain access to the event, Ruffin joined the Virginia Military Institute corps of cadets (from which his son had graduated). Wearing a borrowed overcoat and carrying a weapon; the aging, white-haired secessionist marched into Charles Town with the young cadets who had been ordered up from Lexington . Ruffin would soon collect several of
1000-526: The pikes captured from Brown and his forces, which had been intended to arm slaves in a general uprising. Ruffin sent a pike to each of the governors of the slave-holding states, except Delaware, as proof of violent Northern enmity against the South and slavery. In 1860, Ruffin published his book, Anticipations of the Future, to Serve as Lessons for the Present Time . Written in the form of letters to
1050-575: The "father of soil science" in modern times. During the pre-war years, Ruffin also studied the origin of bogs and published several detailed descriptions of the Dismal and Blackwater swamps in Virginia. Some now consider Ruffin better known for his substantive contributions to agriculture, rather than his claim to have fired the first shot of the Civil War at Fort Sumter . However, his advice on
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#17327655383101100-593: The 4th Virginia Infantry, but did not experience battle. Decades later he enlisted in the Palmetto Guards of South Carolina. Ruffin, like many other planters in Virginia, farmed using enslaved labor. He owned several plantations including Coggins Point and Shellbanks in Prince George. In 1820, he owned 52 enslaved people in Prince George county, which number had grown by 1830 to 86 enslaved people, and by 1840 grew to 96 enslaved people. The 1850 census
1150-713: The Civil War. Julian Calx Ruffin (1821–1864), a soldier, died at the Battle of Drewry's Bluff ). The first-born daughter, Agnes Ruffin Beckwith (b. 1816), died in 1865, the same year as her father. The three survivors were Edmund Ruffin Jr. (1814-1875), Charles Lorraine Ruffin (1832–1870), and George Champion Ruffin (1845-1913). Ruffin enlisted as a private in the Virginia Militia during the War of 1812 , and served as secretary of
1200-584: The Fire-Eaters for a while. In the latter half of the 1850s, the group reemerged. During the election of 1856 , Fire-Eaters used threats of secession to persuade Northerners, who generally valued saving the Union over fighting slavery, to vote for James Buchanan . They used several recent events for propaganda, among them " Bleeding Kansas " and the caning of Charles Sumner , to accuse the North of trying to abolish slavery immediately. Using effective propaganda against 1860 presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln ,
1250-506: The U.S. as of 2004 is the Soil Quality Initiative. Central to the Soil Quality Initiative is developing indices of soil health and then monitoring them in a way that gives us long-term (decade-to-decade) feedback on our performance as stewards of the planet. The effort includes understanding the functions of soil microbiotic crusts and exploring the potential to sequester atmospheric carbon in soil organic matter . Relating
1300-695: The Virginia Tidewater and moved there from Petersburg. Tobacco had long been cultivated on the land and the soil was exhausted, so Ruffin became a serious agronomist and a pioneer in promoting conservation and soil rejuvenation. Ruffin became one of a circle of intellectuals who worked to change various aspects of Southern life. His colleagues included Nathaniel Beverley Tucker , George Frederick Holmes , James Henry Hammond , and William Gilmore Simms . Their interests spanned Southern society. For example, Ruffin edited writings of William Byrd of Westover Plantation The Westover Manuscripts, containing
1350-407: The breaking down or weathering of rocks". serves to illustrate the historic view of soil which persisted from the 19th century. Dokuchaev's late 19th century soil concept developed in the 20th century to one of soil as earthy material that has been altered by living processes. A corollary concept is that soil without a living component is simply a part of Earth's outer layer. Further refinement of
1400-624: The concept of agriculture to soil quality , however, has not been without its share of controversy and criticism, including critiques by Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug and World Food Prize Winner Pedro Sanchez . A more traditional role for soil scientists has been to map soils. Almost every area in the United States now has a published soil survey , including interpretive tables on how soil properties support or limit activities and uses. An internationally accepted soil taxonomy allows uniform communication of soil characteristics and soil functions . National and international soil survey efforts have given
1450-452: The day of his suicide indicating that day to be June 18, which fell on Sunday. Nevertheless, the date was drawn into question by his son Edmund Jr.'s June 20 letter advising brothers George and Thomas of the death. Edmund Jr.'s letter, which surfaced in 1924, unambiguously related the death to have occurred "Saturday last at 12 1/2 o'clock" which was June 17. Biographers Allmendinger and Scarborough extensively reviewed Ruffin's diary entries and
1500-411: The first person to enter Fort Sumter after it fell to Southern forces. During the Civil War, his grandson Julian Beckwith was one of the first Petersburg Confederate soldiers to fall during the Battle of Seven Pines on May 31, 1862. As Union forces threatened Richmond the next summer, Ruffin left Marlbourne for Beechwood, the Prince George County home of his son, Edmund Ruffin Jr. In June 1864, after
1550-469: The first to identify soil as a resource whose distinctness and complexity deserved to be separated conceptually from geology and crop production and treated as a whole. As a founding father of soil science, Fallou has primacy in time. Fallou was working on the origins of soil before Dokuchaev was born; however Dokuchaev's work was more extensive and is considered to be the more significant to modern soil theory than Fallou's. Previously, soil had been considered
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1600-595: The fort. This gave rise to the legend that Ruffin fired the first shot of the Civil War. Ruffin did enlist as a Confederate soldier despite his advanced age. When the war ended in defeat in 1865, he committed suicide rather than accept what he called "Yankee rule." Ruffin is also known for his pioneering work in methods to preserve and improve soil productivity. He recommended crop rotation and amendments to restore soils exhausted from tobacco monoculture . Early in his career, he studied bogs and swamps to learn how to correct soil acidity. He published essays and, in 1832,
1650-554: The growth of divisive sectionalism in the U.S., and they materially contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War (1861–1865). At an 1850 convention in Nashville, Tennessee , Fire-Eaters urged Southern secession, citing what they called irreconcilable differences between the North and the South, and they inflamed passions by using propaganda against the North. However, the Compromise of 1850 and other concessions isolated
1700-454: The happiest of my life." Ruffin is credited with firing one of the first shots from Morris Island against the federally held Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, which is generally considered the military event that initiated the war; the actual first shot against Fort Sumter was a signal shot by Lt. Henry S. Farley from Fort Johnson under the command of Captain George S. James. Ruffin was also
1750-418: The influence of a series of soil-formation factors (climate, vegetation, country, relief and age). According to him, soil should be called the "daily" or outward horizons of rocks regardless of the type; they are changed naturally by the common effect of water, air and various kinds of living and dead organisms. A 1914 encyclopedic definition: "the different forms of earth on the surface of the rocks, formed by
1800-436: The interdisciplinary nature of soil concepts. Exploring the diversity and dynamics of soil continues to yield fresh discoveries and insights. New avenues of soil research are compelled by a need to understand soil in the context of climate change , greenhouse gases , and carbon sequestration . Interest in maintaining the planet's biodiversity and in exploring past cultures has also stimulated renewed interest in achieving
1850-743: The nominee of the anti-slavery Republican Party , the Fire-Eaters were able to convince many Southerners of this. However, Lincoln, despite abolitionist sentiment within the party, had promised not to abolish slavery in the Southern states, but only to prevent its expansion into the Western territories. They first targeted South Carolina , which passed an Ordinance of Secession in December 1860. Wigfall , for one, actively encouraged an attack on Fort Sumter to prompt Virginia and other upper Southern States to secede as well. The Fire-Eaters helped to unleash
1900-624: The perfidious, malignant, & vile Yankee race. Ruffin wrapped himself in a Confederate flag , 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. However, by the time she and his son reached his room, Ruffin had reloaded the rifle and fired a fatal shot. Edmund Jr. and neighbor William H. Harrison transported his body to Marlbourne, his plantation in Hanover County, Virginia , for burial. Both Evergreen ,
1950-409: The plantation house which his father built in 1807 and the plantation on which Edmund was born, and Marlbourne remain today and are designated as National Historic Landmarks . Ruffin is often called the "father of soil science" in the United States, and his writings have been influential in soil conservation. Ruffin had long proven himself to be a dedicated diarist. He posted three diary entries on
2000-544: The profession unique insights into landscape-scale functions. The landscape functions that soil scientists are called upon to address in the field seem to fall roughly into six areas: There are also practical applications of soil science that might not be apparent from looking at a published soil survey. Depression storage capacity, in soil science, is the ability of a particular area of land to retain water in its pits and depressions, thus preventing it from flowing. Depression storage capacity, along with infiltration capacity ,
2050-399: The soil concept is occurring in view of an appreciation of energy transport and transformation within soil. The term is popularly applied to the material on the surface of the Earth's moon and Mars, a usage acceptable within a portion of the scientific community. Accurate to this modern understanding of soil is Nikiforoff's 1959 definition of soil as the "excited skin of the sub aerial part of
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2100-615: The soil on his land that had been worn out by more than a century of monoculture of tobacco, a crop which consumes many nutrients from the soil. An educated man, Ruffin was interested in agricultural science but did not like farming or supervising slaves and in 1835 moved from his plantation in Prince George to the City of Petersburg becoming an absentee landowner, leaving the day to day management of his plantations and supervision of slaves to overseers. In 1843, Ruffin purchased another plantation, Marlbourne , in Hanover County near Richmond , in
2150-417: The son's letter, as well as the circumstances of burial and newspaper publication of the death, and they have debated the case to be made for the 17th and the 18th dates. They have both concluded June 17 to be the more probable date of death, and that Ruffin had become confused and erred in dating his final diary entries. Soil science Soil science is the study of soil as a natural resource on
2200-588: The southern slave states from the United States. He served in the Virginia Senate from 1823 to 1827. In the three decades before the American Civil War he published polemics in support of states' rights and the protection of chattel slavery , earning notoriety as one of the so-called Fire-Eaters . Ruffin was present at the Battle of Fort Sumter in April 1861 and fired one cannon shot at
2250-549: The surface of the Earth including soil formation , classification and mapping ; physical , chemical , biological , and fertility properties of soils; and these properties in relation to the use and management of soils . Sometimes terms which refer to branches of soil science, such as pedology (formation, chemistry, morphology, and classification of soil) and edaphology (how soils interact with living things, especially plants), are used as if synonymous with soil science. The diversity of names associated with this discipline
2300-409: The value of marl was not widely followed in his own time. In an 1852 address, he warned planters that not paying attention to their soil could lead to ruin, and the South suffered from exhausted soils after the Civil War. Ruffin strongly supported slavery and what he considered the Southern way of life. He became increasingly outspoken as sectional hostilities heightened in the 1850s. Some called him
2350-473: The war would start with a Southern attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina . After the election of Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860, Ruffin traveled to South Carolina, where he had previously worked as an agronomist, hoping to encourage secession (perhaps because, as Swanberg says, his fellow Virginians found his views too extreme). He wrote to his son, "The time since I have been here has been
2400-691: The war. His plantation on Coggins Point was the scene of the Beefsteak Raid during the Siege of Petersburg . When the war ended with Confederate defeat, Ruffin, who had already suffered the loss of his wife and eight of his eleven children, was crushed. Increasingly despondent after the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House in 1865, along with the other surrenders that were to follow, Ruffin decided to commit suicide . On June 18, 1865, while staying with his son and daughter-in-law at Redmoor in Amelia County , Ruffin went up to his room with
2450-715: Was George Ruffin (1765-1810) and Edmund was named after his grandfather, Edmund Ruffin (1744-1807), who represented Prince George County in the Virginia House of Delegates during the American Revolutionary War (1775-1778, 1782-1788). He received a private education suitable to his class, then attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia . In 1813, Ruffin married Susan Hutchings Travis of Williamsburg. The couple moved to
2500-652: Was the first with separate slave schedules, and by then Edmund Ruffin owned 84 enslaved people in Prince George county, and 41 enslaved people in Hanover County, Virginia . In the 1860 census, 31 slaves of Edmund Ruffin were leased to someone in Charles City county, his sons Edmund Ruffin Jr. and J. C. Ruffin owned 95 slaves and 22 slaves, respectively in Prince George county, and probably Edmund owned additional slaves in Hanover County. In his twenties, Ruffin began experimenting with using marl to rejuvenate
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