Butler Narration Timeline 1861

“We remember the big and little events of early life, not as occurrences but as retinal pictures of the environment at the time. I say I remember the firing at Fort Sumter. But what I remember is the front stoop, the railing, the crowd passing in the street, as a picture stamped in my memory. I suppose of the great excitement, which I shared through contagion, that particular picture, as known to me as the firing at Fort Sumter, has remained vivid.”