The Civil War in America
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With the fall of their government, ardent Confederates faced a future without their nation, slavery, and often their homes and investments. Some faced the years ahead with determination; others with despair. Native Virginian Edmund Ruffin claimed to have fired the first shot on Fort Sumter in 1861, but the farmer and agricultural reformer reserved his last bullet for himself. Afraid of being a financial burden to his children and unwilling to live under “Yankee rule,” he finished his diary with “The End” and then committed suicide.
* Currently on Exhibit

(Transcription)

I here declare my unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule . . .


With the fall of their government, ardent Confederates faced a future without their nation, slavery, and often their homes and investments. Some faced the years ahead with determination; others with despair. Native Virginian Edmund Ruffin claimed to have fired the first shot on Fort Sumter in 1861, but the farmer and agricultural reformer reserved his last bullet for himself. Afraid of being a financial burden to his children and unwilling to live under “Yankee rule,” he finished his diary with “The End” and then committed suicide.