Chapter 81: Two days later, Sumner is nearly caned to death on the Senate floor.

Retribution comes swiftly when Butler’s second cousin, South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks, corrals Sumner at his Senate desk and delivers what he describes as “thirty-five first rate stripes” with gutta percha cane.

Sumner is bleeding profusely from a head wound before being carried to an anteroom for safety and to have stitches. It will be well over three years before he returns to the Senate after recovering from what modern doctors would call post traumatic stress syndrome.

For his part, Brooks is expelled by the House only to be voted back in by constituents who flood him with more canes to reward his good work.