A very nice CDV of Edmund Ruffin. This is a seated studio view of the long-haired Ruffin with a walking stick and with a wide brimmed hat in his lap. Image is clear with very good contrast. The mount remains in excellent condition. Photographer’s backmark, J.R. Rockwell, Petersburg, VA. A clipped paper with period ink ID accompanies the image.

Edmund Ruffin, III (January 5, 1794 – June 18, 1865) was a wealthy Virginia planter who served in the Virginia Senate from 1823 to 1827. In the three decades before the Civil War, his pro-slavery writings received more attention than his agricultural work. Ruffin, a slaveholder, staunchly advocated states' rights and slavery, arguing for secession years before the Civil War, and became a political activist with the so-called Fire-Eaters. Ruffin is given credit for "firing the first shot of the war" at the Battle of Fort Sumter in April 1861 and fought as a Confederate soldier with the Palmetto Guards despite his advanced age. When the war ended in Southern defeat in 1865, he committed suicide rather than submit to "Yankee rule."

Ruffin is also known his pioneering work in methods to preserve and improve soil productivity. He recommended crop rotation and additions to restore soils exhausted from tobacco monoculture. Early in his career, he studied bogs and swamps to learn how to correct soil acidity. He published essays and, in 1832, a book on his findings for improving soils. He has since become known as "the father of soil science" in the United States.  [jet][ph:L]

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