On the night of the bombing of Fort Sumter, Southern aristocrat Mary Boykin Chestnut described the night spent waiting and listening. (via the Civil War Today iPad app)
Louisa Hamilton came here now. This is a sort of news center. Jack Hamilton, her handsome young husband, has all the credit of a famous battery, which is made of rail road iron. Mr. Petigru calls it the boomerang, because it throws the balls back the way they came ; so Lou Hamilton tells us.
During her first marriage, she had no children; hence the value of this lately achieved baby. To divert Louisa from the glories of ” the Battery,” of which she raves, we asked if the baby could talk yet. ” No, not exactly, but he imitates the big gun when he hears that.
He claps his hands and cries Boom, boom.
Her mind is distinctly occupied by three things: Lieutenant Hamilton, whom she calls ” Randolph,” the baby, and the big gun, and it refuses to hold more.
