The yearly races were second only to the Saint Cecilia Ball as the crowning event of Charleston's social season. Indeed there were many people -- largely bachelors -- who considered them the only event. "You can't gamble on a bunch of waltzes," they grumbled mutinously.

Before the War, the Season had included a full week of racing, and the Saint Cecilia Society hosted three balls. Then came the years of siege; an artillery shell ignited a path of fire through the city that consumed the building where the balls had always been held; and the long, landscaped oval track, its clubhouse, and its stables were used as a Confederate Army encampment and hospitals for the wounded.

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