A Fire-Eater Remembers: The Confederate Memoir of Robert Barnwell Rhett [Hardcover]

Robert Barnwell Rhett (Author), William C. Davis (Editor)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press (April 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 157003348X
• ISBN-13: 978-1570033483
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,852,332 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Fire-Eater Remembers: The Confederate Memoir of Robert Bar, February 7, 2001

By 

D. Jonathan White (Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Fire-Eater Remembers: The Confederate Memoir of Robert Barnwell Rhett (Hardcover)

I found Rhett's writings to be ironically similar in style to those of his nemesis, Jefferson Davis: rigid, self-righteous, and self-important. This book does, however, provide valuable insights into workings of the mind of a radical secessionist. The modern reader will frequently take issue with Rhett's ideas, but seeing how Rhett thought is useful in itself. William C. Davis does his usual excellent job of illuminating the text with insightful endnotes. The only flaw I found in the book is that the endnotes probably should be footnotes because they are so helpful in understanding Rhett's writings as well as Rhett's historical context. Leaving the notes in the back makes them less convenient and useful to the reader. Overall, I recommend this to the student of the secession crisis.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "South Carolina is too small to be a Nation..., June 21, 2008

By 

Barrie W. Bracken "Researcher" (Daytona Beach, FL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Fire-Eater Remembers: The Confederate Memoir of Robert Barnwell Rhett (Hardcover)

and too large to be an iunsane asylum." Robert Barnwell [Smith]Rhett believed he could create the former and became the latter's most prominent inmate.

Rhett was a man of great arrogance, ambition, determination, and little else. Fellow South Carolina radical James Hammond described him as "utterly odious" outside the home state. The South Carolina elite rated Rhett "the most untrustworthy politician in the State. . . . He wants judgment and can never be relied upon for statesmanship." [Quote from Freehling, Road to Disunion, volume II, p. 382]. Most of the influence he had was because of his Charleston Mercury. Rhett would have gloried in the accolade offered by his biographer White--the Father of Secession--but it is hyperbole. He did no more to ensure secession, in fact less, than his fellow fire-eaters Ruffin, Hammond, Yancey, et al. The League of United Southerners formed by Yancey and Ruffin did more for bringing on secession than any of Rhett's ranting and raving.

So what is the value of this book? Let it speak for itself. In his very fine biographical introduction Davis states, "within all his fulminating about securities and betrayals or Jefferson Davis and his friends, their lies an invaluable view of the founding fathers at their work in creating the Confederate government, an often dramatic account of the birth pains of a new would-be nation [xv]. Once the new nation became viable Rhett did all possible to dethrone the traitor Davis and denigrate the dictator Lincoln . "The only document put forth by the Confederate Congress, or any of the states, in justification of their confederacy, in their war against the United States, was written by Mr. Rhett [he speaks in the third person throughout]. . . . The real issue involved in the relations between the North and the South of the American States, is the great principle of self-government. Shall the dominant party of the North rule the South, or shall the people of the South rule themselves. This is the great matter in controversy.... it is impossible, we suppose, for the wit of man to conceive a worse government, than that by which the absolute rule of one people, acting under popular institutions, Rhett established over another people, having different pursuits of industry, habits, and institutions [47-48]."

Rhett preaches the same justification for state's rights as his predecessors and contemporaries, "there is not a factor whole history more indisputable, then that the several States, which adopted the Constitution of the United States, for the establishment of a government over them, at the time of its adoption were free, sovereign, and independent States; and by no declaration of theirs have they renounced their Sovereignty [49]." Of course he cannot escape the opportunity to defame the hated Jefferson Davis, "Jefferson Davis, far more than Abraham Lincoln, produced the catastrophe. The Government of the Confederacy, destroyed the Confederacy [87-88.]"

There are more interesting and detailed journals and diaries written by a fire eaters, but William Davis has done a great service in presenting this particular journal it puts Rhett in its proper place in history. For this reason I give it five stars.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rhett on the Attack, March 30, 2009

By 

Kevin M. Derby (Florida) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Fire-Eater Remembers: The Confederate Memoir of Robert Barnwell Rhett (Hardcover)

William C. Davis compiled some of the various autobiographical writings and musings of Robert Barnwell Rhett in an attempt to cobble together some insight into that pivotal secessionist. After the war, Rhett tried to write an autobiography but never quite finished it. Scholars should be grateful to Davis for editing this book. Rhett lashes out at political leaders both North and South in this book. Rhett presents his view of why the Confederacy failed and argues that the establishment of the Confederate government and the election of Jefferson Davis doomed the fledgling nation. Rhett presents a number of arguments against both Jefferson Davis and Lincoln which William C. Davis feels the need to comment on in the endnotes. Considering how many corrections Davis needed to make, he should have used footnotes. Rhett's style is dry but his account is an interesting one. Davis wrote an excellent introduction. If dry and legalistic and often incorrect, Rhett's account offers insight into why the men who led the fight for secession were quickly tossed aside in the new Confederacy. This is a fascinating book for political historians of the era though its appeal is obviously limited.