Part One of The Battle of Fort Sumter Adapted from Peter Ashley by DuBose Heyward

And the God of Battles that smiles with such inspiring indulgence upon the new Confederation presents them with Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard. Beauregard, great-grandson of Jacques Toutant-Beauregard who, under Louis XIV, had been in command of the flotilla to the Province of Louisiana, and on the distaff side direct descendant of Francois Marie Chevalier de Reggio, royal standard bearer under the Spanish domain. Oh, most emphatically a gentleman, but a soldier as well—hero of Chapultepec, Cerro Gordo, Vera Cruz, and late commander of the military academy at West Point.

DuBose Heyward, author of Peter Ashley, and Porgy, around 1928.

The Battle of Fort Sumter

Adapted from Peter Ashley
by DuBose Heyward

[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. : DuBose Heyward is best known for his 1925 novel, Porgy, which eventually became the famous George Gershwin opera, Porgy and Bess.¹

Heyward was born in 1885 in Charleston and died in 1940. He is descended from Thomas Heyward, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Much of his writing took place during the Charleston Renaissance, the period between World Wars I and II, when the arts flourished following the difficult period after the War Between the States. Writers included Heyward, John Bennett, Josephine Pinckney and Julia Peterkin, along with poets Hervey Allen and Beatrice Ravenel. Visual artists included Alfred Hutty, Alice Ravenel Huger Smith, and Elizabeth O’Neill Verner.² 

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