Bookish Beaufort

By Suzanne Kamata

The first cannonball shot of the American Civil War may have been fired from Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, but the war had its beginnings in nearby Beaufort. I didn’t realize this until the desk clerk at the Beaufort Inn where I had booked a room for my sister-in-law and me gave us the grand tour.

“And this building,” he said, gesturing to the cottage where we would be spending the night, “housed the former law offices of Mayor Edmund Rhett who helped draft the Articles of Secession.”

And here I had thought “The Rhett Cottage” was a reference to Rhett Bu...