In the early 1850s, northerners and southerners alike used the term
fire-eater to describe anyone whose views were clearly outside the
political mainstream. Eventually, though, the word came to be most
closely identified with those southerners who were staunch and
unyielding advocates of secession. In this broadly researched and
illuminating study, Eric H. Walther examines the lives of nine of
the most prominent fire-eaters: Nathaniel Beverly Tucker, William
Lowndes Yancey, John Anthony Quitman, Robert Barnwell Rhett,
Laurence M. Keitt, Louis T. Wigfall, James D.B. De Bow, Edmund
Ruffin, and William Porcher Miles. Walther paints skillful
portraits of his subjects, analysing their backgrounds,
personalities, and contributions to the movement for disunion.
Although they shared the common goal of southern independence,
Walther shows that in many respects the fire-eaters differed
markedly from one another. It was their very diversity, he
maintains, that enabled them to appeal to such a wide spectrum of
southern opinion and thereby rally support for secession. In his
exploration of the role of the fire-eaters in the secession
movement, Walther touches upon a number of perennial themes in
southern history, including the appeal of proslavery thought and
southern expansionism, the place of education and industrialization
in antebellum southern society, the significance of oratory in
southern culture, and the nature of southern nationalism. He also
describes the fire-eaters' activities on behalf of the Confederacy
and traces the course of their lives after the war. The Fire-Eaters
makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the secession
movement and the context in which it developed. There is no other
study available that treats these men as a group and that
delineates their manifold differences as well as their
similarities. Walther shows that secessionism was not a monolithic
ideology but rather a movement that emerged from many sources,
spoke in many voices, and responded to a number of regional
problems, needs, and aspirations.
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