In the chap­ter “The Scent of Rebel­lion,” we fol­low Edmund Ruffin’s fer­vent jour­ney post-elec­tion, moti­vat­ed by his belief that South Car­oli­na would lead the charge for seces­sion after Lin­col­n’s vic­to­ry in 1860. Arriv­ing in Colum­bia on Novem­ber 10, 1860, he found him­self cel­e­brat­ed as a hero, a stark con­trast to his expe­ri­ences back in Vir­ginia. Remark­ably, stu­dents from South Car­oli­na Col­lege even request­ed him to speak, although he hes­i­tat­ed due to fear of fail­ure. Nev­er­the­less, he rev­eled in the admi­ra­tion, tak­ing steps to draw fur­ther atten­tion by adorn­ing a blue cock­ade on his hat—an emblem asso­ci­at­ed with the seces­sion­ist move­ment.

The state legislature’s debate cul­mi­nat­ed in a his­toric vote approv­ing a mea­sure that, while mere­ly a pre­am­ble, edged South Car­oli­na clos­er to seces­sion, a dream Ruf­fin long antic­i­pat­ed. He expressed his exhil­a­ra­tion in a let­ter to his sons, claim­ing this day was the hap­pi­est of his life and a pre­lude to a rev­o­lu­tion that would lib­er­ate the slave-hold­ing states from North­ern influ­ence.

As he trav­eled towards Charleston, Ruf­fin was met with enthu­si­as­tic cheers and applause, even being the guest of hon­or at a pro-seces­sion ral­ly that fea­tured can­non fire and cel­e­bra­to­ry music. This South­ern cus­tom of a musi­cal ser­e­nade was rem­i­nis­cent of the cama­raderie and pas­sion­ate spir­it sur­round­ing the pro-seces­sion sen­ti­ment. In Charleston, Ruf­fin sensed a col­lec­tive fer­vor pal­pa­bly dri­ving the seces­sion­ist move­ment, which was fueled by the fear of a Black Repub­li­can gov­ern­ment. Augus­tus Bald­win Longstreet cap­tured this sen­ti­ment when he wrote about the unstop­pable tide towards seces­sion in a pub­lic let­ter, liken­ing it to try­ing to con­trol a tor­na­do.

Ruffin’s hopes soared as he not­ed that seces­sion, once a dis­tant dream, appeared tan­gi­ble. Com­men­tary from influ­en­tial fig­ures, like jour­nal­ist Horace Greeley—the “New York Tri­bune” editor—encouraged this opti­mism, as he pub­licly stat­ed that if the Cot­ton States believed they would thrive out­side the Union, they should be allowed to leave peace­ful­ly.

Ener­gized by his expe­ri­ences in South Car­oli­na, Ruf­fin trav­eled to Geor­gia to fur­ther incite seces­sion­ist sen­ti­ment. How­ev­er, he was dis­heart­ened by the hes­i­ta­tion among Georgia’s lead­ers. Return­ing to Rich­mond, he found crit­i­cism and con­dem­na­tion await­ing him, yet he remained defi­ant, con­tin­u­ing to wear his blue cock­ade, emblem­at­ic of his unwa­ver­ing sup­port for what he per­ceived as a right­eous cause.