THE FIELD OF BLOOD
Joanne Freeman

RECOMMENDATION: BUY AND READ

Unaware, I began reading this impressive history on January 6, 2021 and a few hours later, the TV news took over. The Field of Blood is about conflict, fights, duels, threats and bullying within the halls of Congress from the 1820s to 1861. Visual images consumed hours on the Sixth, and subsided. I continued to read about events, past and present, and thought, What better day to read The Field of Blood.
This history relies much on the diary, writings and poetry of a Washingtonian, Benjamin Brown French, who witnessed first-hand violence within the halls of Congress. He was a clerk in the House of Representatives, and later had jobs placing him in and around Congress. He personally knew all the brawlers and bullies, the good shots and marksmen. There was more bravado and threats than fighting. During one large incident a House member lost his toupee, which ran the course of the humor/comedy circuit. Fists the House sometimes became melees. Producing a gun and sometimes a Bowie knife caused other Congressmen to intervene to stop the fight, and many others to secure vantage points to observe. This history does not say but likely no one fussed with Davy Crockett; likewise, no one bothered Abraham Lincoln.
Southerners began the intimidation, bullying and violence. Northerners conceded points and become doughfaces, avoiding personal confrontations, challenges and points of honor which could never be defined. Southerners were particular. Southerners considered Northerners sissies, today’s word. Yet Giddings of Ohio pushed back and fought. And without throwing a punch or threatening anyone, John Quincy Adams spoke in the House of Representatives, offending Southerners and frequently violating the gag rule. For a decade Representatives were gagged, preventing debate about slavery, about presenting anti-slavery petitions, hurting the feelings of Southerners with Petitions or attempt to communicate with other Americans by presenting Petitions. Being the son of a Founding Father, a former President, having supreme intellectual powers, having chops himself through his well-known and appreciated actions during life, and being friends with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, an elderly John Quincy Adams was off limits to physical threats. Many Representatives spoke offensive language to that old man. Yet it seemed every chance Adams had to press his issues – win, lose or drawn – he did so.
About the time of the Mexican War Northerners realized more was at stake than politics and petitions about slavery. Southerners were suppressing and prohibiting speech, and the right to petition the government and the right to communicate with other Americans, individually and by and through government. Those became grounds to fight for, and new breeds of Northerners – Know-Nothings, Free Soilers and eventually Republicans – pressed back.

Readers learn that Charles Summer, Senator of Massachusetts, was caned in the Senate in May 1856. One reason: He had written a well-written anti-slavery tract and published it. After the attack the volume sold many thousands of copies. In this history, no mention is made of Uncle Tom’s Cabin which apparently did not enter into Congressional debates.
The Field of Blood is a difficult history to write. BB French is hardly a figure to weave through 35 years of events, before and during the Civil War. He is not a hero; he is not a protagonist. He chronicles and his observations form the basis of this book, an intricate social and cultural history turning into a political history. When Lincoln was elected and Republicans became powerful, the future before Southerners was using ineffective means and methods to legislate. They only knew of violence and threats to get their way. But after 1860 acting badly culturally meant Southerners did not know how to conduct business, differently than what they had done for 40 years. The results of election of 1860 was a grounds for Succession.