Books by Eric H. Walther

William Lowndes Yancey (1814-63) was one of the leading secessionists of the Old South. This biography examines his personality and political life. Born in Georgia but raised in the North by a fiercely abolitionist stepfather and an emotionally unstable mother, Yancey grew up believing that abolitionists were cruel, meddling, and hypocritical.

Walther examines the lives of nine of the most prominent "fire-eaters" (southerns who were staunch and unyielding advocates of the secession): Nathaniel Beverley Tucker, William Lowndes Yancey, John Anthony Quitman, Robert Barnewll Rhett, Laurence M. Keitt, Louis T. Wigfall, James D. B. DeBow, Edmund Ruffin, and William Porcher Miles.