The Charleston Mercury was a secessionist newspaper in Charleston, South Carolina, founded by Henry L. Pinckney in 1819. He was its sole editor for fifteen years. It ceased publication with the Union Army occupation of Charleston in February 1865. After the American Civil War, publication resumed in November 1866 before the paper closed permanently two years later in 1868. [1]
During the American Civil War, the paper was "strongly secessionist", calling upon South Carolinian men to take up arms to defend the South. [2] Its owner, Robert Barnwell Rhett, had two plantations and 190 enslaved persons. [3] The paper was critical of Davis and Confederate generals, in contrast with its pro-Davis competitor the Charleston Courier . [1] Rhett's son R. Barnwell Rhett Jr. was the editor. [4]
Humorist George William Bagby was a Richmond, Virginia correspondent of the Charleston Mercury during the Civil War era and "covered the politics of the war and made a reputation for Hermes, his pen name, as a fearless writer who would criticize Confederate General Robert E. Lee as easily as Confederate President Jefferson Davis".
The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States (C.S.), the Confederacy, or the South, was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confederacy comprised eleven U.S. states that declared secession and warred against the United States during the American Civil War. The states were South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
Robert Woodward Barnwell was an American slave owner, planter, lawyer, and educator from South Carolina who served as a Senator in both the United States Senate and that of the Confederate States of America. Barnwell was a public defender of slavery and secession; he personally owned at least 128 enslaved persons.
Louis Trezevant Wigfall was an American politician who served as a Confederate States Senator from Texas from 1862 to 1865. He was among a group of leading secessionists known as Fire-Eaters, advocating the preservation and expansion of an aristocratic agricultural society based on slave labor. He briefly served as a Confederate Brigadier General of the Texas Brigade at the outset of the American Civil War before taking his seat in the Confederate Senate. Wigfall's reputation for oratory and hard-drinking, along with a combative nature and high-minded sense of personal honor, made him one of the more imposing political figures of his time. He was also a slave owner.
De Bow's Review was a widely-circulated magazine of "agricultural, commercial, and industrial progress and resource" in the American South during the mid-19th century, from 1846 to 1884. Before the Civil War, the magazine "recommended the best practices for wringing profits from slaves." It bore the name of its first editor, James Dunwoody Brownson De Bow, who wrote much of the early issues, but there were various writers over the years. R. G. Barnwell and Edwin Q. Bell, of Charleston, appeared as editors in March 1867, after DeBow's death, and W. M. Burwell was editor from March 1868 to December 1879.
The Battle of Globe Tavern, also known as the Second Battle of the Weldon Railroad, fought August 18–21, 1864, south of Petersburg, Virginia, was the second attempt of the Union Army to sever the Weldon Railroad during the siege of Petersburg of the American Civil War. A Union force under Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren destroyed miles of track and withstood strong attacks from Confederate troops under Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard and Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill. It was the first Union victory in the Richmond–Petersburg Campaign. It forced the Confederates to carry their supplies 30 miles (48 km) by wagon to bypass the new Union lines that were extended farther to the south and west.
Robert Barnwell Rhett was an American politician who served as a deputy from South Carolina to the Provisional Confederate States Congress from 1861 to 1862, a member of the US House of Representatives from South Carolina from 1837 to 1849, and US Senator from South Carolina from 1850 to 1852. As a staunch supporter of slavery and an early advocate of secession, he was a "Fire-Eater", nicknamed the "father of secession".
William Porcher Miles was an American politician who was among the ardent states' rights advocates, supporters of slavery, and Southern secessionists who came to be known as the "Fire-Eaters." He is notable for having designed the most popular variant of the Confederate flag, originally rejected as the national flag in 1861 but adopted as a battle flag by the Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee before it was reincorporated.
George Alfred Trenholm was a South Carolina businessman, financier, politician, and slaveholding planter who owned several plantations and strongly supported the Confederate States of America. He was appointed as its Secretary of the Treasury during the final year of the American Civil War.
Burnet Rhett Maybank was a three-term US senator, the 99th governor of South Carolina, and mayor of Charleston, South Carolina. He was the first governor from Charleston since the American Civil War (1861-1865) and one of twenty people in United States history to have been elected mayor, governor, and United States senator. During his tenure in the Senate, Maybank was a powerful ally of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. His unexpected death on September 1, 1954, from a heart attack, led to Strom Thurmond being elected senator.
South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union in December 1860, and was one of the founding member states of the Confederacy in February 1861. The bombardment of the beleaguered U.S. garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861, is generally recognized as the first military engagement of the war. The retaking of Charleston in February 1865, and raising the flag again at Fort Sumter, was used for the Union symbol of victory.
Edward Lee Spence is a pioneer in underwater archaeology who studies shipwrecks and sunken treasure. He is also a published editor and author of non-fiction reference books; a magazine editor, and magazine publisher ; and a published photographer. Spence was twelve years old when he found his first five shipwrecks.
John Bratton was a U.S. Representative from South Carolina, as well as a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He rose from private to brigadier general and led a regiment and brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia in several important battles in both the Eastern Theater and Western Theater during the war.
In the United States, Southern Unionists were white Southerners living in the Confederate States of America opposed to secession. Many fought for the Union during the Civil War. These people are also referred to as Southern Loyalists, Union Loyalists, or Lincoln's Loyalists. Pro-Confederates in the South derided them as "Tories". During Reconstruction, these terms were replaced by "scalawag", which covered all Southern whites who supported the Republican Party.
The Robert Barnwell Rhett House is a historic house at 6 Thomas Street in Charleston, South Carolina. A National Historic Landmark, it is significant as the home of Robert Barnwell Rhett, a leading secessionist politician. He opposed John C. Calhoun to lead the Bluffton Movement for separate state action on the Tariff of 1842. Rhett was one of the leading fire-eaters at the Nashville Convention of 1850, which failed to endorse his aim of secession.
Magnolia Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery in Charleston, South Carolina. The first board for the cemetery was assembled in 1849 with Edward C. Jones as the architect. It was dedicated in 1850; Charles Fraser delivered the dedication address. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a Historic District in 1978.
The Rhett House Inn, is a historic Inn at 1009 Craven Street, Beaufort, South Carolina. It is significant as the home of Thomas Moore Rhett and his wife, Caroline Barnwell, who were early pioneers in South Carolina in the 1800s. The Inn is in the Point neighborhood, which is part of the Beaufort Historic District. Today, the Rhett House Inn serves as a Four Diamond bed and breakfast Inn.
Alfred Moore Rhett was a rice planter, a "volatile and controversial" Confederate artillery officer, victorious duelist, police chief, and the son of Fire-Eater Southern politician Robert Barnwell Rhett.
R. Barnwell Rhett Jr. was a Confederate-American thought leader who edited the pro-secession Charleston Mercury newspaper owned by his father, the Fire-Eater politician Robert B. Rhett. He was later a Reconstruction-era editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune. He killed a New Orleans judge in a duel in 1873.