The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

That same November, Major Anderson—a US Army veteran of the Mexican-American War—took over responsibility for federal forces in Charleston. His predecessor had a lax management style that had made Fort Sumter and the nearby Fort Moultrie vulnerable to attack should South Carolina secede from the United States.

Charleston at the time had 32 brokerages for enslaved people, and many visitors felt a sense of brutality emanating from the city. Enslaved people of all ages were sold at these markets. Anderson and his wife, Eba, were unbothered by the existence of enslavement. They were both from the South and had owned enslaved people in the past. Anderson wasn’t hostile toward the South but was fiercely loyal to the US Army.

Arriving in Charleston, Anderson tried to create a civil and nonthreatening relationship with the people of the city. At the same time, he sent messages to his superiors requesting reinforcements, since he rightly suspected that Charleston authorities hoped to eventually seize control of all nearby federal buildings.

James Hammond was a South Carolina plantation-owner who controlled over 300 enslaved people. Though born outside of privilege, at South Carolina College Hammond made the connections to join wealthy Southern society. He married Catherine Fitzsimons—a member of one of South Carolina’s richest families—thereby becoming a wealthy planter.

Many of the enslaved people Hammond owned were likely to bear children, which helped his wealth since a single enslaved person could be sold for over $50,000 in today’s money. Hammond’s attitude toward the enslaved people he controlled was “absolute dominance” (36), complete with whippings for perceived misbehavior.

In the 1830s Hammond was elected to the US House of Representatives and moved his family to Washington, DC. There, they chose to engage only with other Southerners. Worried about the intensifying anti-enslavement sentiment among people of the North, Hammond became a virulent pro-enslavement advocate in Congress, calling enslavement “the greatest of all the great blessings which a kind Providence has bestowed” (40). Hammond and other planters felt that attacks against the practice of enslavement impugned their honor as gentlemen.

In 1851, Harriet Beecher Stowe began to publish Uncle Tom’s Cabin as a serial in an anti-enslavement newspaper based in Washington. The novel depicted the brutality of enslavement and helped accelerate the anti-enslavement movement. Many Southerners viewed it as an insult to their honor. In response, they wrote their own novels trying to uphold the virtues of enslavement, but none rivalled the massive popularity of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

After moving to Columbia in 1841, and while serving as Governor of South Carolina, James Hammond began secretly sexually abusing four of his nieces, the youngest of whom was 13 years old. This abuse went on for two years and included everything short of “direct sexual intercourse” (48), according to Hammond’s diary.

Eventually, the girls’ father learned of the abuse and broke off family ties with Hammond. Rumors of what happened seriously wounded Hammond’s reputation among the Southern elite. When Hammond ran for the US Senate in 1846, the girls’ father went public with Hammond’s infidelities, causing him to lose the election badly.

Hammond also repeatedly raped Sally Johnson, an enslaved women he purchased in 1839. He also sexually abused Sally’s daughter once she turned 12 in 1850. He likely sired children with both women. Hammond’s wife Catherine was furious, but later came to accept these abuses.

Despite this behavior, in 1857 the South Carolina legislature appointed Hammond to serve out the remaining term of a US Senator who had died in office. Back in Washington, Hammond continued his fiery defense of enslavement. In 1858 he gave a speech that served as “a milestone in proenslavement rhetoric” (54), in which he argued that the South’s control of cotton made it unassailable by any Northern force. Hammond’s claim that “cotton is king” (56) made many Southerners fail to understand that real war could take place if they seceded from the United States. They believed that the North couldn’t hold out once the South cut off the cotton supply.

In 1858, Lincoln—then running for the US Senate—gave one his best and most foolhardy speeches, in which he suggested that the United States “cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free” (58). His quote “a house divided against itself cannot stand” (59) was later shown to be a prescient warning about the upcoming Civil War.

Four months later, anti-enslavement advocate William Seward—then US Senator from New York—gave a speech that went further than Lincoln’s, using the language of war to describe the need to end enslavement. Seward accused the Democratic Party of surrendering on the enslavement issue and urged voters to dislodge Democrats from government. Like Lincoln, Seward saw the debate over enslavement as an “irrepressible conflict” that would only be settled when the nation was entirely “a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation” (59).

Edmund Ruffin was a planter and enslaver who viewed enslavement as a morally correct and beneficial institution. He was born in Virginia as part of the “Southern chivalry.” He bonded with James Hammond over their shared interest in agriculture and their support for enslavement. Ruffin often felt lonely and enjoyed getting attention.

In 1859, when Ruffin was 65 years old, he and the rest of country learned that an abolitionist named John Brown had led an attempted uprising of enslaved people in Virginia. The uprising was quickly crushed by federal troops, led by US Army officer Robert E. Lee. Brown’s uprising appeared to fulfill the worst fears of Southern enslavers, who worried that the North was trying to incite all enslaved people to rebel against the planters. Southern militias saw an influx of new recruits.

Ruffin was hopeful that Brown’s actions would incite the Southern states to secede from the Union. When Brown was sentenced to death for his rebellion, Ruffin attended the execution. He took possession of several pikes—spear-like weapons—that Brown’s men had used and sent them to the governors of the pro-enslavement states to remind them of the dangers of Northern abolitionists. He kept one pike for himself and always carried it on his travels. Ruffin wrote a novel upholding the value of enslavement and condemning the abolitionists in the North.

John Brown’s raid did little to affect the enslavement trade. In January 1860 Charleston held eight auctions for enslaved people; 658 people were sold, including Little Joe, who was three years old.

Edmund Ruffin wasn’t happy that the Republicans nominated Lincoln for President. He had hoped they would nominate William Seward, whose more aggressive anti-enslavement rhetoric might have galvanized Virginia to consider secession. Other Southerners, however, seemed not to care that Lincoln was relatively moderate when it came to enslavement. The John Brown raid had whipped them up into a frenzy of fear, in which they pictured Lincoln’s election as inaugurating a general uprising of enslaved people against the planters.

Ruffin visited a resort in Sulphur Springs, Virginia that was a popular destination for Southern members of the “chivalry,” including Robert E. Lee. Current President James Buchanan sometimes stayed there.