Madison County AlArchives Biographies.....Rhett, Robert Barnwell 1828 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 September 18, 2011, 10:02 pm

Source: See below
Author: Smith & De Land, publishers

  ROBERT BARNWELL RHETT, the father of a long lineage and of a conspicuous
public service, was born in 1800. The son, of whom this brief sketch is given,
was born in Charleston, S. C., in 1828. His accomplished mother was a Burnets,
whose paternal grandfather came from Aberdeen in the colonial days, her maternal
grandfather being Daniel DeSaussure, whose son W. H. DeSaussure was first
Controller of the United States mint and whose wife was Sarah McPherson, of
Badenoch-Cluny descent.

  On both sides of his house Mr. Rhett is identified with the history of the
United States, early and late.

  Prepared for college chiefly by William R. Abbott. of Georgetown, D. C., he
entered Harvard from Charleston in 1845. At the June exhibition of '47, being
one of "the first eight" of a large class, he was a speaker; at that of '48 he
was again a speaker; and on commencement day, 1849. For rank in scholarship he
was chosen a member of "The Phi Beta Kappa Society." He was elected president
and orator of "The Hasty Pudding Club," and he was an active member of "The
Oneida Boat Club," pulling in several eight-oared races on the river Charles
among the winning crew.

  President Everett having advised against a two-years' travel in Europe, he
returned to Charleston, studied law in the office of James L. Petigru, a
personal friend of his father, and was admitted to the bar at Columbia, S. C.,
in 1851. He also served on the staff of Governor Means.

  In 1853, suffering from laryngitis, having married a handsome and popular
young lady of Huntsville, Ala., and being fond of country life, he became a
rice-planter in Colleton district, S. C., working a goodly number of negroes.

  After two years' close, practical attention to the business, supplemented by
the study of "Leibig's Agricultural Chemistry," "Watson's Practice of Medicine,
"Youatt on the Horse," etc., etc., he dispensed with the services of an overseer
and managed his own planting. At the same time he supervised his father's
plantations and overseer, with 350 odd slaves. To many of these both father and
son were strongly attached, and the feeling was largely reciprocated and
practically exhibited during the war.

  While engrossed in these occupations, his cousin, Wm. R. Taber, editor of the
Charleston Mercury, was killed in a duel, regularly fought. A challenge had been
accepted for publishing an anonymous communication from a personally responsible
author, who criticised in stringent terms a candidate to succeed Hon. Wm. Aiken
in Congress. Regarding the conduct of the affair as pressed too far, especially
in the demand for a third fire, which proved fatal, and as intended or tending
to break down the politics represented by the paper, those of his father,
Colonel Rhett bought the interests of Taber in the Mercury and afterward that of
his partner, John Heart. He quit planting with a handsome profit, and from
March, 1857, edited the Mercury. In less than four years its circulation
quadrupled, and it was the leading political organ of the Southern States,
looked to by the most prominent and influential public men, particularly in the
Cotton States. The events of the Charleston convention and the results of the
canvass of 1860 were the culmination of the long pending sectional issues.

  Early in the summer of that year Colonel Rhett lost his first wife, and while
at Saratoga for his health, in August, he was elected to the Legislature, from
Charleston.

  Upon the election of Mr. Lincoln to the presidency of the United States, in
November, Colonel Rhett, through the Columbia Guardian newspaper, called a
meeting of the members of the Legislature at Kinsler's hall, on Main street, at
ten o'clock A. M. He had obtained a number of letters from public men, of the
different Southern States, who had the confidence and respect of the people of
South Carolina. The letters were replies to specific questions, propounded as to
the course which South Carolina should pursue in the contingency anticipated. He
presented them to the meeting and they were read by the secretary. Gen. Wm. E.
Martin, the clerk of the Senate. Letters of similar character were offered by
other members and were read, and the meeting adjourned. Colonel Rhett, then in
the House of Representatives, offered a joint resolution, by precedent, for the
call of a State Convention, and named December 6th for the election of delegates
and December 17th for the assembling of the body. This, by consent, was referred
to the Judiciary Committee, and the proposition was reported back in the form of
a bill, prepared by the late Hon. Henry Buist, of Charleston, and was
unanimously passed by both Houses. The State Convention, thus called, met at
Columbia, adjourned to Charleston, and, on the 20th of December, unanimously
adopted the ordinance of secession dissolving the Union.

  On the 24th of December Major Anderson transferred his command from Fort
Moultrie over to Fort Sumter. As this was held contrary to the understanding of
the South Carolina commissioners, with President Buchanan. Colonel Rhett urged
its immediate seizure by the State authorities, a stroke then easy of
accomplishment; and this course was pressed on two considerations: first, to
settle the issue under President Buchanan rather than under President Lincoln:
and. second, to compel Virginia and other halting border States, to take sides
definitely, so that the North might know what to expect in the event of war. But
these views did not prevail, and the complication remained until April 12-13,
with the results which followed. For the flag of South Carolina, Colonel Rhett,
in the House, proposed the old blue field, and white crescent, with a colorless
palmetto added, and the proposition was carried after opposition.

  In an editorial of the Mercury, Colonel Rhett first suggested Montgomery,
Ala., as the place of meeting for the convention of the seceding States. The
suggestion was made, not merely on account of its central position below the
mountains, but because the Montgomery Advertiser was thoroughly in accord with
the movement and because it was the home of Wm. L. Yancey. The State convention
adopted the proposal, and invited the delegates to assemble at Montgomery on the
4th of February, which they did.

  In 1861-1862 Colonel Rhett served on the staff of Gen. R. S Kipley, in South
Carolina, and, during the war, he was repeatedly under fire in Charleston and on
the islands adjacent. He edited the Mercury, and served as a member of the
Legislature. His four brothers were in service under Beauregard, Johnston and
Lee, from the beginning. One, Lieut. Robert W. Rhett, was killed at Cold Harbor,
in 1862: Capt. Edmund Rhett and Maj. A. B. Rhett, survived the war, physical
wrecks, to linger a few years. Col. Alfred Rhett, of Fort Sumter fame, is still
living in Charleston, S. C. After the evacuation of Charleston, Col. R. B. Rhett
received an appointment on the staff of Gen. J. E. Johnston, but the end came
quickly.

  The course of Colonel Rhett, in editing the Mercury, was throughout the war
distinct and positive, in regard to foreign diplomacy, financial matters, and
military and naval affairs. But in this brief notice it is impossible to convey
any idea of the various policies projected, or the reasons offered in their
support. Results, however, of the management pursued, under the lights of the
present, go far to prove the political sagacity shown in the Mercury and the
justice of its criticisms of the Confederate Government.

  After the war, when suffrage was conferred upon the negroes, Colonel Rhett, at
a meeting of prominent citizens, held at the office of "Porter & Conner," in
Charleston, for consultation, argued the importance of canvassing among the new
voters, utterly ignorant, before the agents of the Freedman's Bureau could array
them solidly as Republicans against their white neighbors; but he was alone, and
the Union League had  it their own way for ten years.

  In November, 1866, the publication of the Mercury was resumed, and in 1868 its
editor warmly advocated the nomination of General Hancock, for President, by the
New York Democratic convention. When the motley reconstruction convention of
South Carolina was held in Charleston, Colonel Rhett set forth, in plain terms,
the unsavory antecedents of its various members: and during the period of
deepest gloom, he contributed to holding up the hearts and hopes of the people
of that depressed State, notwithstanding a threat made him of imprisonment at
Castle Pinckney by General Sickles and menaces of assassination by Republican
politicians, whom he had shown up.

  The flush times following the war subsided, and cotton from 40 cents a pound
dropped to 9 in 1867-1868, with wide-spread disaster at the South. Colonel Rhett
sunk considerable money in the Mercury and in cotton planting at this period.

  Having in 1867 married a second time, a lady of Huntsville, Ala., of rare
beauty, he moved to Alabama in 1870, and since that time has attended to cotton
planting in Madison County and in Noxubee County, Miss.

  In 1872 he opened the State canvass of Alabama, with Colonel Herndon, nominee
for Governor, offering resolutions in support of Mr. Greeley, not as a Democrat,
but as an alternative to Grant.

  Soon afterward he accepted an invitation from "The N. O. Printing and
Publishing Company" to edit the Picayune, and through that canvass, and for a
year after, during the stormy struggle of the people of Louisiana against
Kellogg's fraud and usurpation, he controlled its columns. He vigorously and
fearlessly exposed the great wrong and the various men conspicuously engaged in
the enterprise, when an effort was made to muzzle the Picayune by two $100,000
suits for libel, brought respectively in behalf of Chief Justice Ludeling and of
Hawkins, made Judge of the Superior (or political) Court. Without going into
detail, suffice it to state, that, in defending the cause of Louisiana, the
Picayune and himself, Colonel Rhett became involved in a personal difficulty
with Judge Wm. H. Cooley, counsel for Judge Hawkins. It sprung from a gratuitous
and baseless imputation, made against the editor by the lawyer in his speech,
and followed by a grossly insulting card in the New Orleans Times. A duel was
fought between the parties, at Montgomery Station, Miss., in which Judge Cooley
fell at the second fire. Colonel Rhett's course was fully justified by people of
the South, who understood the situation and the circumstances of the affair. By
precept and example he inculcated the spirit which led to the needed political
change in Louisiana under Wiltz, Nicholls, and Ogden.

  In 1875, in Noxubee County, he took an active and responsible part in the
canvass which freed Mississippi from carpet-bag domination.

  In 1876, on account of dissatisfaction with the News and Courier, the
Charleston Journal of Commerce was started (without the Associate Press
dispatches, however), and Colonel Rhett was called to edit it. The News and
Courier persistently advocated the support of Chamberlain, Republican, for
Governor, by the Democrats of South Carolina. Colonel Rhett advised a straight
struggle under a Democratic leader of sufficient prestige and popularity, to
rouse the people to the supreme effort required, Hampton being the man
indicated. Hampton was nominated in the Journal of Commerce by Gen. M. C.
Butler. This programme was adopted by the State convention of the party, the
News and Courier falling into line. An effort was then made to separate the
State canvass from the presidential election, and confine the labors to the
former, as a purely local affair. Colonel Rhett strenuously insisted that the
canvass should be conducted abreast with and as a part of the presidential
election, the issue of which was so vital. Tilden and Hendricks were elected,
but the country was deprived of Tilden's administration of affairs. Hampton,
after a long struggle, secured his office; and the Government of South Carolina
got again in the hands of white men and Democrats. Colonel Rhett was elected to
the Legislature with General Rutledge, at the head of the large delegation from
Charleston; and he assisted in the rehabilitation of the State, in the
settlement of the State debt, and in the reestablishment of her high credit.

  Having returned to Huntsville, Ala., in 1878, in 1880 Colonel Rhett advocated
the nomination of Hancock and engaged actively with voice and pen, in the
election of General Wheeler to Congress from the 8th district.

  In 1882, at Athens, Ala., he opened the canvass for State offices, by the
first speech, taking the highest grounds for the Democratic party. He also spoke
effectively on this plane, with Governor O'Neal, at Montgomery and at Mobile.

  In 1884 he attended the Chicago Democratic convention, and on returning home,
after the nomination, was made president of the Cleveland Club, at Huntsville.
He canvassed the 8th district for the presidential nominees and for General
Wheeler, who was again elected to Congress. At the Democratic convention of
Alabama, in 1886, Colonel Rhett was chairman of the committee on platform and
resolutions, which first endorsed the administration of Mr. Cleveland. Civil
service reform and an equitable revision of the tariff for revenue, were the two
planks proposed by him; the committee struck out the tariff plank, lie was also
elected at the head of the executive committee of the State: and he was
appointed by Governor O'Neal as trustee of the University of Alabama.

  His latest work in politics is an article among the "War Papers" of the
Century magazine on the Confederate Government of Montgomery. In terse and
pregnant sentences it throws much light on the events of that historic period.

  In person, Colonel Rhett is live feet nine inches tall, with straight limbs,
and weighs 140 pounds. His eyes are dark gray and clear. His bearing is simple,
calm, direct and courteous. The correspondent of the New York Herald, from New
Orleans, described him as follows: "Personally Colonel Rhett is represented to
be high-toned, gentle and chivalrous—a quiet, low-spoken man, and the last
either to court a quarrel or to recede from one, at the expense of his own
honor; he has never hesitated to hold himself responsible for all language
uttered in his journalistic columns or elsewhere."

  Colonel Rhett is deeply interested in the development of the beautiful valley
of the Tennessee River and presided over the first public meeting in Huntsville
for the building of the Elora Railroad to connect with Nashville, and over the
first concerning the Cincinnati, Huntsville & Birmingham Railroad.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

Northern Alabama: Historical and Biographical
Birmingham, Ala.: Smith and De Land
1888

PART IV.
MONOGRAPHS OF THE PRINCIPAL CITIES AND TOWNS IN NORTHERN AND CENTRAL ALABAMA,
TOGETHER WITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF MANY OF THEIR REPRESENTATIVE PEOPLE.


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