The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

by Erik Larson

Russell accepted, and on Sunday, March 3, sailed from Queenstown, Ireland, aboard the steamship Arabia. His fellow passengers included several wealthy Southerners, among them a former member of the U.S. Legation in St. Petersburg, Russia, who had quit to ally himself with the Confederacy, and a U.S. Army colonel, Robert S. Garnett of Virginia, who planned to resign his own commission and then join the Confederate army. The colonel proved to be a living primer on that mythic creature, the Southern planter. “He laughed to scorn the doctrine that all men were born equal in the sense of all men having equal rights,” Russell wrote in his diary. “Some were born to be slaves—others to follow useful mechanical arts—the rest were born to rule and to own their fellow men.” To Colonel Garnett, slavery was anything but evil. “Divine institution”—the colonel declared—“an Abolitionist opposes the laws of God himself!” He loathed Yankees. “I would die a hundred times to keep them out!” As it happened, a centile of his wish would be fulfilled five months later when he became the first Confederate general killed in the coming war.