R. Barnwell Rhett Jr.

R. Barnwell Rhett Jr. (February 25, 1828 – January 29, 1905) was a Confederate-American thought leader who edited the pro-secession Charleston Mercury newspaper owned by his father, the Fire-Eater politician Robert B.

[4] From 1872 to 1874,[6] he was a pro-Democrat, pro-Redeemer editor of the Times-Picayune, "holding up to public contempt and ignominy, the leaders of the Carpet-baggers and Scallawags in the reconstruction days.

"[2] He engaged in a double-barrelled shotgun duel at forty paces with William Henry Cooley (1833–1873), judge of the sixth district court of the Parish of Orleans,[7] "over a controversy that grew out of the heated Issues brought into public affairs by the atrocities of carpetbagger rule.

[8] As recollected from the distance of 1905, "The affair created a tremendous sensation, but nothing was ever done about it, and the memory of the tragedy gradually died away like many other things that occurred during those dark days.

"[4] He served on the board of a trustees of the University of Alabama,[4] was a Huntsville town booster, and was a member of the Chamber of Commerce.

"Confederate Chieftains," 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