From incidents of violence among state and national legislators in the United States, compiled by Joanne B. Freeman in The Field of Blood. Freeman is a professor of history and American studies at Yale University. The book will be published this month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Democrats got drunk and refused to vote on a military spending bill
A Republican, a Democrat, and a Whig went to the theater, got drunk, and started a fistfight
Democrats, Republicans, and Whigs knocked over chairs, desks, and inkstands and began to wrestle
A Republican ripped off a Democrat’s toupee
A Democrat scratched a Democrat
A Republican punched a Democrat
A Democrat punched a Republican
A Whig punched a Whig
A Democrat grabbed a Republican by the throat
A Republican grabbed a Democrat by the throat
A Democrat beat a Republican with a cane a dozen times
A Whig threatened to shoot another Whig who had threatened to kill a bank director planning to testify before the House
A Democrat drew a pistol on another Democrat, who then demanded that he pull the trigger
A Whig dueling on behalf of another Whig shot and killed a Democrat
The speaker of the Arkansas House stabbed a Republican who was insulting him with a bowie knife, killing him, and was then expelled, tried for murder, acquitted, and reelected