The Field of Blood

Joanne B. Freeman, a professor of history and American studies at Yale University, is a leading authority on early national politics and political culture. Author of the award-winning Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic and editor of The Essential Hamilton and Alexander Hamilton: Writings, she is a cohost of the popular history podcast BackStory.

"One of the best history books I've read in the last few years." -Chris HayesThe Field of Blood recounts the previously untold story of the violence in Congress that helped spark the Civil War.A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEARAN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEARONE OF SMITHSONIAN'S BEST HISTORY BOOKS OF THE YEARHistorian Joanne B. Freeman recovers the long-lost story of physical violence on the floor of the U.S. Congress. Drawing on an extraordinary range of sources, she shows that the Capitol was rife with conflict in the decades before the Civil War. Legislative sessions were often punctuated by mortal threats, canings, flipped desks, and all-out slugfests. When debate broke down, congressmen drew pistols and waved Bowie knives. One representative even killed another in a duel. Many were beaten and bullied in an attempt to intimidate them into compliance, particularly on the issue of slavery.These fights didn't happen in a vacuum. Freeman's dramatic accounts of brawls and thrashings tell a larger story of how fisticuffs and journalism, and the powerful emotions they elicited, raised tensions between North and South and led toward war. In the process, she brings the antebellum Congress to life, revealing its rough realities-the feel, sense, and sound of it-as well as its nation-shaping import. Funny, tragic, and rivetingly told, The Field of Blood offers a front-row view of congressional mayhem and sheds new light on the careers of John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and other luminaries, as well as introducing a host of lesser-known but no less fascinating men. The result is a fresh understanding of the workings of American democracy and the bonds of Union on the eve of their greatest peril.

Introductions: Tobacco-Stained Rugs and Benjamin Brown French1. The Union Incarnate for Better and Worse: The United States Congress2. The Mix of Men in Congress: Meeting Place of North and South3. The Pull and Power of Violence: The Cilley-Graves Duel (1838)4. Rules of Order and the Rule of Force: Dangerous Words and the Gag Rule Debate (1836-1844)5. Fighting for the Union: The Compromise of 1850 and the Benton-Foote Scuffle (1850)6. A Tale of Two Conspiracies: The Power of the Press and the Battle over Kansas (1854-1855)7. Republicans Meet the Slave Power: Charles Sumner and Beyond (1855-1861)Epilogue: "I Witnessed It All"