Francis W. Pickens and the politics of destruction /

Francis W. Pickens is best remembered as governor of South Carolina during the secession winter of 186061, and for his important, if inept, role in the Fort Sumter crisis. Born into one wealthy South Carolina family, he married into another. He was elected to the US House of Representatives before he was 30, largely through his family connections with John C. Calhoun. After Calhoun cooled toward Pickens, his career declined until President James Buchanan appointed him minister to Russia in 1858, from which post he returned to be elected governor. ``I believe it my destiny,'' Pickens once wrote, ``to be disliked by all who know me well.'' Edmunds (University of South Carolina at Spartanburg) tends to agree, and labels him ``a truly pitiful man.'' Drawing on a wide array of manuscript sources for the first modern biography of this major southern leader, Edmunds explores the unique world of antebellum South Carolina politics in a useful study that belongs in all research libraries.-J.Y. Simon, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale