The Scent of Rebel­lion fol­lows Edmund Ruffin’s jour­ney after the elec­tion of 1860, where his hopes for South­ern inde­pen­dence are reignit­ed. On Novem­ber 10, Ruf­fin arrived in Colum­bia, South Car­oli­na, feel­ing a sense of tri­umph as he was wel­comed as a hero—this recep­tion stark­ly con­trast­ed with his pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ences in Vir­ginia. As he nav­i­gat­ed this new atmos­phere of South­ern zeal, he was invit­ed to speak at South Car­oli­na Col­lege, an hon­or that filled him with both excite­ment and ner­vous­ness, as he feared fail­ing in front of such pas­sion­ate seces­sion­ists. Despite his reser­va­tions about speak­ing, he embraced the atten­tion and wore a blue cock­ade on his hat, a sym­bol that proud­ly dis­played his unwa­ver­ing sup­port for the seces­sion­ist cause. The cock­ade became a visu­al tes­ta­ment to his beliefs, as he found ways to ampli­fy the move­ment and strength­en his role as a fig­ure­head of the rebel­lion.

The South Car­oli­na legislature’s debate cul­mi­nat­ed in a mon­u­men­tal vote that edged the state ever clos­er to seces­sion. Although the vote was tech­ni­cal­ly just a pre­am­ble, it was a huge step for the move­ment that Ruf­fin had long hoped for. He was filled with exhil­a­ra­tion, con­sid­er­ing it the hap­pi­est moment of his life, sig­nal­ing the begin­ning of what he viewed as a rev­o­lu­tion­ary move­ment that would lib­er­ate the South­ern states from North­ern dom­i­nance, espe­cial­ly over the con­tentious issue of slav­ery. In a let­ter to his sons, he described the moment as a clear sign that the South would final­ly be able to break free from the oppres­sion of the Union, view­ing it as a sig­nif­i­cant vic­to­ry in the fight to pre­serve their way of life.

On his jour­ney toward Charleston, Ruf­fin was met with tremen­dous enthu­si­asm from the South­ern pop­u­lace, with peo­ple cheer­ing him on and cel­e­brat­ing his com­mit­ment to the cause. This enthu­si­asm reached its peak when he attend­ed a pro-seces­sion ral­ly, where he was hon­ored as a guest of dis­tinc­tion. The ral­ly was filled with can­non fire and cel­e­bra­to­ry music, all of which cre­at­ed a fes­tive and rebel­lious atmos­phere, embody­ing the spir­it of defi­ance against the Union. As Ruf­fin arrived in Charleston, the fer­vor around him only inten­si­fied, and he could feel the pal­pa­ble ener­gy of the seces­sion­ist move­ment, which was fueled by the fear of a “Black Repub­li­can” gov­ern­ment under Lin­coln. Augus­ta Bald­win Longstreet, a promi­nent South­ern fig­ure, likened the momen­tum for seces­sion to a force of nature, some­thing unstop­pable, like a tor­na­do that was sweep­ing through the South, threat­en­ing to change the course of his­to­ry.

Ruffin’s opti­mism was fur­ther fueled by the writ­ings of influ­en­tial fig­ures, such as Horace Gree­ley, the edi­tor of the New York Tri­bune, who encour­aged the idea of peace­ful seces­sion, sug­gest­ing that if the South­ern states believed they would pros­per out­side the Union, they should be allowed to leave peace­ful­ly. This vision of a peace­ful and ami­ca­ble split great­ly appealed to Ruf­fin, who envi­sioned a Con­fed­er­a­cy that would thrive inde­pen­dent­ly and pro­tect the insti­tu­tion of slav­ery from North­ern inter­fer­ence. As the momen­tum for seces­sion con­tin­ued to grow, Ruffin’s belief in the right­eous­ness of the cause became even more entrenched. He saw the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a pros­per­ous South­ern nation that could thrive with­out the shack­les of North­ern con­trol, par­tic­u­lar­ly regard­ing the issue of slav­ery, which he viewed as essen­tial to the South­ern econ­o­my and way of life.

In his zeal to fur­ther the cause, Ruf­fin trav­eled to Geor­gia to meet with local lead­ers, hop­ing to ignite sim­i­lar fer­vor for seces­sion among them. How­ev­er, upon arrival, he found that the state’s lead­ers were more hes­i­tant, uncer­tain about the imme­di­ate need to secede despite the grow­ing tide of South­ern sen­ti­ment. This reluc­tance from Georgia’s lead­ers left Ruf­fin feel­ing dis­heart­ened, as he had hoped the momen­tum of South Carolina’s actions would inspire imme­di­ate action in neigh­bor­ing states. Unde­terred by this set­back, he returned to Rich­mond, where he faced crit­i­cism and con­dem­na­tion for his out­spo­ken sup­port for seces­sion. Despite the harsh words direct­ed at him, Ruf­fin remained res­olute in his beliefs, con­tin­u­ing to wear his blue cock­ade as a sym­bol of his unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to the cause. His defi­ance in the face of oppo­si­tion showed his deter­mi­na­tion to fight for what he believed to be the right­ful cause of the South, con­vinced that seces­sion was the only path for­ward for South­ern pros­per­i­ty and hon­or.

Ruffin’s unre­lent­ing opti­mism and com­mit­ment to the seces­sion­ist cause under­scored his belief that the time for com­pro­mise had passed. As he con­tin­ued to cham­pi­on the cause for South­ern inde­pen­dence, he became a sym­bol of the grow­ing defi­ance against the Union, embrac­ing his role as one of the lead­ing voic­es advo­cat­ing for seces­sion. Even in the face of chal­lenges and set­backs, Ruffin’s deter­mi­na­tion remained strong, see­ing him­self as part of a larg­er move­ment that would soon change the future of the South and its peo­ple. His actions and stead­fast sup­port for the cause would go down in his­to­ry as part of the broad­er nar­ra­tive that led to the for­ma­tion of the Con­fed­er­a­cy and the even­tu­al out­break of the Civ­il War.