The Fire-Eaters - Eric H. Walther

In the early 1850s, northerners and southerners alike used the term fire-eater to describe anyone whose views were clearly outside the political mainstream. Eventually, though, the word came to be most closely identified with those southerners who were staunch and unyielding advocates of secession, In this broadly researched and illuminating study, Eric H. Walther examines the lives of nine of the most prominent fire-eaters: Nathaniel Beverley Tucker, William Lowndes Yancey, John Anthony Quitman, Robert Barnwell Rhett, Laurence M. Keitt, Louis T. Wigfall, James D. B. De Bow, Edmund Ruffin, and William Porcher Miles.