Edmund Ruffin
- geologist, agricultural reformer
(and, he fired the first shot at Fort Sumter)
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Edmund Ruffin was an 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 highly effective, he published his findings, first in An Essay on Calcareous Manures (1832) and then in his celebrated agricultural journal, the Farmers' Register. 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.
"The principles of agriculture are the same everywhere in all countries, - but their application often require special modifications. It is so in this State. The use of our native fertilizers for example, in the various kinds of marls, call for special rules of application. These are to be found out only by close observation and much experience. An immense saving in money depends upon their proper application, as to time, from composition and the condition of the soil to which they are to be applied."
The following is a selection from his work: Agricultural, Geological, and Descriptive Sketches of Lower North Carolina, and the Similar Adjacent Lands.Printed at the Institution for the Deaf & Dumb & the Blind, Raleigh - 1861.
This great swamp, more than any other seen, has much the largest proportion of "juniper land," or surface on which the juniper, or white cedar, thrives best, and is, or has recently been, the principal or exclusive, forest growth. The thrifty, and extensive or general growth of juniper indicates the wettest and most miry (or sponge,") soil, which is always the most peaty, or most exclusively of vegetable formation.
These trees are the most valuable for timber, in shingles especially, and such land is perfectly worthless for draining ** and cultivation, because of its almost entire vegetable composition.
Such land, and such forest growth, before its last and complete destruction by fire, made up the larger portion of the main body of the swamp, and nearly all of its interior land. This soil is deep, and is said to lie on a bottom of sand.
Near to the outer margin, and bordering on the surrounding firm land, and between Suffolk and Elizabeth river, the swamp soil is not more than from one foot deep (nearest the outside) to three feet further in, with a more clayey bottom earth, and the forest growth is of black gum, or cypress mixed with gum.
Lands of this kind only, and in small proportion, even of this kind, have been drained, cultivated, and found of abiding productiveness. It is through the outer edge of the swamp, and of the portion the least swampy, that the Seaboard railroad passes, for a few miles only, and in which, the hastily passing traveller, if not informed, would not suspect that he was then in the great Dismal Swamp.
The Norfolk and Petersburg railroad, in 1856, in the course of construction, passes through another and larger line of the swamp, and more towards its interior - but still mostly over the outer and thinner deposit, of vegetable soil, and almost wholly through gum forest. The former route I examined through, on foot - and also the latter, so far as it was then accessible - and for a distance said to present a fair sample of the ground of the whole route through the swamp. The recent excavation and embankment for this railroad has served to open the soil and its foundation much better to examination. The soil (nearly all covered by gum trees, and therefore of the most earthy and solid constitution of all the swamp,) so far as seen is but two and a-half to three feet deep before arriving at solid and real earth below. Both these conditions, of soil and sub-soil, seem to afford more desirable materials than would have been available farther in the swamp. Still, I infer that much even of this embankment must rot away, and that the level of the newly raised surface for the road will sink in proportion.
The most important and interesting route, for examination, and also for the facility and pleasure of the conveyance, is along the Jericho canal, dug and used for transporting shingles from the interior of the swamp, and the lake, to the landing, at a tide-water creek, near Suffolk, empyting into Nansemond river, where the large sea-vessels are loaded. The canal is closed at the end near the creek, and its level is there more than twenty feet above low tide water. The canal was dug twelve feet wide, four deep, and is ten miles long to Lake Drummond, and perfectly straight nearly throughout. A regulating lock at the junction with the lake serves to keep the water in the canal at a uniform height when long droughts may have sunk the water in the lake two feet or more lower than usual. The canal water is level from the lake to the landing, and the water being supplied from the swamp has a gentle current from the central portion of the canal towards both its extremities.
The firm land near the landing on both sides of the canal varies from one to two, and for a little space is from three to four feet higher than the swamp surface. The true swamp is soon reached, and from the remaining eight miles or more, along the canal, its margin, formerly a raised bank, is at most, but a few inches higher than the water in the canal, and also the water generally overspreading the neighboring swamp surface. The tow-path for the men propelling the boat merely afforded better footing by being trodden and consolidated, and by poles having been laid along for the boatmen to tread upon, where the more depressed surface was covered by water. The peaty earth thrown out of the canal, when it was dug, must have made a broad and high embankment, of which scarcely anything now remains, nearly all having rotted away, and so disappeared. This sufficiently indicates how worthless is, and how short would be the very existence of, such soil, if drained and cultivated, and thus made liable to go into complete decomposition.
After an early and abortive effort to drain and cultivate some of the land, all the subsequent labors of the principal proprietors of the swamp, The Dismal Swamp Land Company,* have been directed exclusively to the very profitable work of getting shingles, and other timber. The proprietorship and the objects of this company both operate to oppose and obstruct any attempts of other individual proprietors of other portions, for draining the better margin lands. And still more is this obstructed by the construction of the Dismal Swamp canal for navigation, which, by its high level, operates to dam and raise the water upon a large portion of the surface of the swamp.
The swamp forests, where preserving their original appearance, or where they have not been deformed or utterly destroyed by great fires present scenery of solemn grandeur and of rare and peculiar beauty. The forests of gum and cypress have not been much damaged by fires or by the labors or improvements of man, and the trees usually remain of their proper great sizes, and venerable appearance, closely shading the wet, black and level soil.
The junipers do not grow large, or they are so slightly fixed in their soil of semi-fluid mire, that they are overturned by storms before they reach large size. But when making the general cover, and though none may exceed twelve inches in diameter, a more beautiful forest growth cannot be conceived. These trees are evergreen, very like the cedar in general appearance, but taller, more slender, with long and straight and bare trunks, supporting tops of tapering, flexible, and graceful horizontal branches. Standing thick as they do naturally, the tops of the trees unite to form one wide-spread canopy of green, supported by thousands of visible slender and perfectly straight columns. The silent gliding of the traveller's boat on the black and still water of the canal, and for miles together in silence and solitude through such forests as these, or of the gigantic gum and cypresses, and thence entering upon the bosom of the broad and beautiful central lake-all serve to present a combination of the gloomy sublime and the beautiful of Nature, that is rarely equalled elsewhere.
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* Dismal Swamp Land Company - In May 1763, George Washington made his first visit to the Swamp and suggested draining it and digging a north-south canal through it to connect the waters of Chesapeake Bay in Virginia and Albemarle Sound in North Carolina. Joining with several other prominent Virginians and North Carolinians, he formed two syndicates known as the Dismal Swamp Land Company and the Adventurers for Draining the Great Dismal Swamp. This group hoped to drain the Swamp, harvest the trees, and use the land for farming.
At one time or another most of the key figures of the time, including George Washington, Light Horse Harry Lee, William Byrd, and Patrick Henry, owned shares in the Company.
** 'perfectly worthless' - not by a long shot, as current
coastal development will attest
Edmund Ruffin, whose long white hair made him immediately recognizable to contemporaries, was born in 1794 and educated in Virginia, including a brief period at the College of William and Mary. For most of his life, Ruffin was a farmer and a renowned agricultural reformer. Experiments on his farm convinced him that fertilizers, crop rotation, drainage, and good plowing could revitalize the declining soil of his native state. From the 1820s onward, Ruffin published his findings, edited an agricultural journal, lectured, and organized agricultural societies. In the 1850s, he became president and commissioner of the Virginia State Agricultural Society.
Increasingly, however, Ruffin turned his attention in the 1850s to politics, especially the defense of slavery and secession. Although he had earlier expressed some doubts about slavery and opened the pages of his agricultural journal to arguments abo ut colonization, by the 1850s Ruffin had become a staunch proponent of slavery and of the racial inferiority of blacks. He joined the ranks of fire-eating southern radicals advocating a separate southern nation to protect slavery and the southern way of life. Secession became as great a reform cause as agricultural improvement. Both would rejuvenate the South.
Ruffin's desire to push the secessionist movement towards a confrontation with the North brought him to Charleston during the Sumter crisis. He intended to take his stand with the Confederacy, and he hoped events would drive his native state, Virginia , out of the Union. His ardent southern nationalism made him a hero of southern radicals. He was invited to attend three secession conventions, and given the honor of firing one of the first batteries against Fort Sumter.
As the Confederacy's fortunes ebbed during the war, however, Ruffin grew distraught. Plagued by ill health, family misfortunes, and the rapid collapse of Confederate forces in 1865, Ruffin proclaimed "unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule," and on June 1 7, 1865, committed suicide. His act, sometimes considered the "last shot" of the Civil War, become identified with the Confederacy's defeat and a symbol of the lost cause. His suicide was interpreted as an expression of the southern code of honor, the refusal to accept a life in defeat.
Defiant to the bitter end, this fiery Southern patriot penned these famous last words in his diary just minutes before taking leave of the Yankee tyranny that had descended upon Dixie...
"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."
Wherever there is a mint julep, there is a bit of the Old South. For the julep is part ceremony, tradition, and regional nostalgia; part flavor, taste, and aroma; and only by definition liquor, simple syrup, mint, and ice. It is all delight. It is nectar to the Virginian, mother's milk to the Kentuckian, and ambrosia to Southerners anywhere. The mint julep is the subject of the poet and the cliche of the novelist, yet the best receipts for it are more poetic than the poetry it has inspired, and its elusive history is more intriguing than many a piece of fiction.
General Simon Bolivar Buckner (not the Confederate General Buckner but his son who was killed at Okinawa in World War II) wrote out, though it was probably composed by someone else, the literary receipt for the twentieth century julep. Here are General Buckner's directions for the "Mint Julep - the quintessence of gentlemanly beverages" as he recorded them in a letter to a fellow general:
A Mint Julep is not the product of a formula - it is a ceremony and must be performed by a gentleman possessing a true sense of the artistic, a deep reverence for the ingredients and a proper appreciation of the occasion. It is a rite that must not be entrusted to a novice, a statistician nor a Yankee. It is a heritage of the Old South, an emblem of hospitality and a vehicle in which noble minds can travel together upon the flowerstrewn paths of a happy and congenial thought.
So far as the mere mechanics of the operation are concerned, the procedure, stripped of its ceremonial embellishments, can be described as follows:
Go to a spring where cool, crystal clear water bubbles from under a bank of dew washed ferns. In a consecrated vessel dip up a little water at the source.
Follow the stream through its banks of green moss and wild flowers until it broadens and trickles through beds of mint growing in aromatic profusion and waving softly in the summer breeze. Gather the sweetest and tenderest shoots and gently carry them home. Go to the sideboard and select a decanter of Kentucky Bourbon distilled by a master hand, mellowed with age yet still vigorous and inspiring. An ancestral sugar bowl, a row of silver goblets, some spoons and some ice and you are ready to start.
Into a canvas bag, pound twice as much ice as you think you will need. Make it fine as snow, and keep it dry and do not allow it to degenerate into slush.
Into each goblet put a slightly heaping teaspoonful of granulated sugar, barely cover this with spring water and slightly bruise one mint leaf into this, leaving the spoon in the goblet. Then pour elixir from the decanter until the goblets are about one fourth full. Fill the goblets with snow ice, sprinkling in a small amount of sugar as you fill. Wipe the outside of the goblets dry and embellish copiously with mint.
Then comes the important and delicate operation of frosting. By proper manipulation of the spoon the ingredients are circulated and blended until nature, wishing to take a further hand and add another of its beautiful phenomena, encrusts the whole in a glistening coat of white frost. Thus harmoniously blended by the deft touches of a skilled hand, you have a beverage eminently appropriate for honorable men and beautiful women.
When all is ready assemble your guests on the porch or in the garden where the aroma of the juleps will rise Heavenward and make the birds sing.
Propose a worthy toast, raise the goblet to your lips, bury your nose in the mint, inhale a deep breath of its fragrance and sip the nectar of the gods.
Being overcome by thirst I can write no further.
(from The Mint Julep by Richard Barksdale Harwell)