The Fire-Eaters

by Eric H. Walther

Book Overview

Walther examines the lives of nine of the most prominent "fire-eaters" (southerns who were staunch and unyielding advocates of the secession): Nathaniel Beverley Tucker, William Lowndes Yancey, John Anthony Quitman, Robert Barnewll Rhett, Laurence M. Keitt, Louis T. Wigfall, James D. B. DeBow, Edmund Ruffin, and William Porcher Miles.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807117757
• ISBN13: 9780807117750
• Release Date: July 1992
• Publisher: LSU Press
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Finally, an apolitical work on the Fire-Eaters

I was happy to discover an informative and non-political overview of these men's lives. Their differing backgrounds and approaches to the issues of secession and slavery was fascinating. Such books are needed when dealing with controversial issues and personalities. This work puts some meat on other works covering the era. Well done.

Overlooked Leaders of the Old South

In this excellent collection of biographic sketches, Eric Walther focuses on southern leaders who helped lead their region out of the United States. Walther shows an odd assortment of men-the idealistic Edmund Ruffin; the scholarly Miles; the romantic Keitt; the blowhard Wigfall; the ambitious Quitman. They had little in common and often did not even know each other. But they succeeded in having their states leave the Union. While some can be pegged as ambitious would-be leaders (Rhett and Quitman), others had no interest in power (Ruffin and DuBois). Walther argues that the fire-eaters were conservatives looking to protect their liberty and their way of life who had radical temperament. Very few of them held much power or prestige in the new Confederacy and some were expressly repudiated (Rhett is the best example). Walther does not ignore that many of these men defended slavery. This generation of the Old South has been overlooked by a number of readers who prefer to focus on Jefferson Davis and the Confederate military. But it was not moderates like Davis and Alexander Stephens who carried the day in 1860. If you want to know why the South pulled out of the Union, you have to look at the men who called for secession early and often. There is no better starting place than this excellent book.

A rare MUST HAVE for students of CSA history...

This is a marvelous effort which offers insights into the philosophical background of key spokesmen in the Disunion/Secession movement. Focusing on nine such figures (such as Rhett, Wigfall, Ruffin...), Walther weaves a mini-biography of sorts, along with discussion of the contribution these "fire-eaters" made to the fruition of their efforts - formal Secession of core Southern states, after the election of Black Republican apostle, A. Lincoln. Walther shows the how the "abstract" art of politics finally leads to "tangible" armed conflict - conflict which in many ways was given an intellectual basis by the writings and actions of the nine Southerners outlined in this book. As I often tend to more military oriented studies, Walther's Fire-Eaters was a wonderful sidebar! I recommend this book to all Civil War students, especially, of course, those with a particular slant toward CSA studies.