American Heritage has an essay on the assault on Senator Charles Sumner by Representative Preston Brooks 153 years ago today. The essay details the events leading up to the attack — an inflammatory speech by Sumner — and the aftermath. Here’s what they say about the acutal assault:
Brooks avoided the potential difficulty of a fair fight by entering the Senate chamber after that body had adjourned. He waited chivalrously for all the ladies to leave, then approached Sumner’s desk, where the senator was franking copies of his speech to be sent to supporters. Brooks spoke a few words explaining his presence, then began whacking Sumner over the head with his cane. When the senator raised his hands, Brooks became excited and, he recalled, felt “compelled to strike him harder” than he had intended.
Sumner managed to get up and stagger down the aisle, pursued by Brooks, as a pair of congressmen tried to separate the two men and several others argued over whether to get involved. Sen. Stephen Douglas, who had been another target of Sumner’s abuse, was called to the scene but chose not to interfere, worrying that, in view of the state of relations between him and Sumner, “my motives would be misconstrued.”
Brooks recalled that by the time his cane finally shattered, less than a minute after he first confronted the senator, he had dealt Sumner “about 30 first rate stripes. Towards the last he bellowed like a calf. I wore my cane out completely but saved the Head which is gold.”