[The following takes place during the Battle of Fort Sumter.]
Another incident involved a crew firing at Sullivan’s Island. They noticed that several hundred yards farther down the beach, in front of the Moultrie House, stood a crowd of people observing the battle as though it were an entertaining spectacle. The soldiers in Sumter, sweaty and tired, grew annoyed at the casualness of those people. When Doubleday and the other officers were out of sight, some of them, led by two sergeants, snuck over to two unused 42-pounders off to the side. They loaded and aimed them at the crowd and fired. They missed, but one of the balls landed in front of the spectators and skipped over their heads, crashing into the second floor of the Moultrie House.
They were pleased to note the crowd leaping in all directions. Later on, Doubleday would claim credit for the shot, saying wryly, when asked about it by a Southerner, that he chose to hit the hotel because he had once been given an unsatisfactory room there; the Southerner considered that a capital answer.
Source:
Detzer, David. “A Mere Point of Honor.” Allegiance: Fort Sumter, Charleston, and the Beginning of the Civil War. New York: Harcourt, 2002. 280. Print.
Original Source(s) Listed:
REM, p. 161.
Mercury, April 15, 1861.
E. Milby Burton, The Siege of Charleston, 1861-1870, USCP, 1970, p. 57.
Further Reading:
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