The Caning: The Assault that Drove America to Civil War

In 1856, two days after a fiery speech by abolitionist senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, South Carolina representative Preston Brooks entered the Senate chamber and beat Sumner brutally with a heavy cane. Historian Puleo (Due to Enemy Action: The True World War II Story of the USS Eagle) exaggerates when he claims that this was a cause of the Civil War ("A line had been crossed%E2%80%A6 and their was no going back"), but the incident illustrated the murderous gulf that had opened between pro- and antislavery forces. More convincingly, Puleo emphasizes that the beating's enthusiastic approval throughout the South shocked Northern opinion more than the assault itself, persuading many moderates that slavery advocates might not be amenable to reason. Two weeks later, the new Republican Party held its presidential convention and, energized by the caning, the party went on to win a majority of Northern votes in the election. Portraying his subjects as sincere if fervent, with Brooks the more sympathetic of the two, Puleo surrounds this skillful dual biography with a competent account of a hopelessly divided nation sliding toward bloody conflict. 28 illus. Agent: Joy Tutela, David Black Literary Agency. Oct. 20).