Thomas Lanier Clingman
Subtitle: fire eater from the Carolina mountains
By: Thomas E. Jeffrey.
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Athens
Language: eng
Number of pages: 450
Subjects: Clingman, T. L. 1812-1897.; United States. Congress. Senate -- Biography.; Legislators -- United States -- Biography.; Politicians -- North Carolina -- Biography.; North Carolina -- Politics and government -- 1865-1950.
Description: Thomas Lanier Clingman: Fire Eater from the Carolina Mountains is the first book-length biography of one of the most important, colorful, and controversial figures in nineteenth-century American life. A man of enormous intellect and intense ambition whose ultimate goal was nothing less than the presidency, Clingman was a lawyer, entrepreneur, Civil War general, inventor, amateur scientist, explorer, and, as a U.S. congressman and senator, one of the foremost champions of southern rights. Thomas E.

Jeffrey's analysis of how a leading advocate of this cause could thrive within an environment where slavery was only a marginal institution provides fresh insights into the political culture of southern Appalachia, the character of the southern rights movement, and the coming of the Civil War.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [417]-432) and index.