His zeal prompted one observer to call him “a fiery agent of disunion.” He looked the part: A man of middling height—five feet, eight inches, neither short nor tall—he wore his white hair down to his shoulders; his facial features were sharp and spoke of abstention and judgment, as if he were some biblical character sent to smite the evils of this world—meaning, mainly, Yankees. He loathed the North; like his friend James Hammond, he deemed slavery to be a morally correct and beneficial institution.
