On the night of May 24, 1856, one of the most violent episodes of “Bleeding Kansas” occurred at Pottawatomie Creek, dramatically influencing the already tense atmosphere between proslavery and antislavery forces in the United States. Angered by the beating of Charles Sumner, John Brown, a…
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On May 22, 1856, the United States Senate chamber witnessed a shocking and violent episode that reflected the intense sectional tensions of the antebellum era. Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina brutally assaulted Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a cane, an event that…
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On May 21, 1856, the town of Lawrence, Kansas—a fledgling stronghold of free-state resistance on the contested frontier—was looted and burned by a posse of some 800 proslavery partisans under the authority of a federal marshal. Though often recast in summary as a mere…
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