R. Barnwell Rhett Jr. was a Confederate-American thought leader who edited the pro-secession Charleston Mercury newspaper owned by his father, the Fire-Eater politician Robert B. Rhett. He was later a Reconstruction-era editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune. He killed a New Orleans judge in a duel in 1873.
"Confederate Chieftans," including R. Barnwell Rhett, engraved by J.C. Buttre c. 1864 (Library of Congress Digital)
The Rhett family plantation, at Beaufort, Port Royal Island, was occupied by the Union Army early in the American Civil War, and the people who had been enslaved there were emancipated; the freedom of 350 slaves would have been a financial loss for the Rhetts of, very conservatively, US$300,000 (equivalent to $5,971,304 in 2023)
Mercury masthead 1867
Robert Barnwell Rhett was an American politician who served as a deputy from South Carolina to the Provisional Confederate States Congress from 1861 to 1862, a member of the US House of Representatives from South Carolina from 1837 to 1849, and US Senator from South Carolina from 1850 to 1852. As a staunch supporter of slavery and an early advocate of secession, he was a "Fire-Eater", nicknamed the "father of secession".
Robert Barnwell Rhett
