Huck Finn Beats Up Preston Brooks!

I’ve had this little scenario bouncing around in my head for a few years now. It isn’t a detailed timeline or a sweeping epic – rather it’s a vision of a single moment in history that may or may not have been particularly crucial, and how I wish things had gone differently just for the sake of that one moment.



The POD is the existence of a man who never lived in OTL, who for purposes of poetic license and convenience of imagination we can think of as a grown up, real-life version of Huckleberry Finn.

“Huck” is born very poor in Missouri in 1828, and spends his childhood and early teen years in and around Hannibal, Missouri; he does a surprising amount of traveling at a young age, and becomes peripherally involved with the Underground Railroad – unusually for his society, he decides for himself quite early on, based on his experiences in interacting with both whites and negroes, and his own personal moral code, that slavery is “just plumb wrong.” In his mid-teens he comes into a small amount of money, and with the assistance of some of his childhood friends and their families, he gets a semblance of an education (very much against his will) – he even studies law in St. Louis in the late 1840s; in 1850 he heads out to California during the Gold Rush, and by 1853 he has made himself a small fortune after a variety of rough-and-tumble adventures.

A bit of a late bloomer, Huck grows up to be more than six feet tall, broad and muscular, a man of extraordinary physical power, durability and stamina, capable of astonishing violence when the situation calls for it.

An impressive and commanding figure, with a warm, honest, and open personality, a reputation as an absolutely fearless genuine frontier bad-ass, lots of friends, a certain rough charisma, and a way with words – not great oratorical skill by the standards of the day, but witty, insightful, and humorous – Huck somehow finds himself elected to the US House of Representatives from California in 1854.

Huck discovers he doesn’t much care for Washington (and he loathes politics), and he decides not to run for re-election in 1856, determined to “light out for the territories again” once his term is up, but he is still in town in May of 1856, and when Preston Brooks attacks Charles Sumner in the Senate chamber, Huck happens to be passing by just outside, and he hears the start of a ruckus…



Huck rushes into the chamber and moves forward with several others to help Sumner as Brooks begins beating him.

Laurence Keitt, standing nearby, jumps into the aisle and threatens the approaching Congressmen with a pistol, shouting:


“Let them be!”


The others withdraw, but Huck’s blood is up. He stands his ground and scoffs at Keitt, bellowing:


“A gun, is it? Then I reckon you’re yellow! Shoot me, if you dare!”


He steps toward Sumner and Brooks.

Surprised by this, without thinking, Keitt shoots him in the chest, driving him back a step with a pained grunt.

The onlookers (and Keitt) gasp in shock, and Brooks pauses in beating Sumner and turns around, surprised by the shot.

By a great stroke of luck, the bullet deflects off of two of his ribs (breaking them), narrowly missing his heart and lungs, and exits out his back, splattering the floor behind him with blood and a tiny chunk of flesh; though the pain is tremendous, he is an incredibly tough and vigorous man, with an unusually high pain threshold – years before, in California, he survived a mauling by a grizzly bear (during which, despite being horribly clawed and bitten and suffering several broken bones, he managed to bite off one of the bear’s toes, and survived by throwing himself off a cliff into a river), and this isn’t as bad as that was.

Huck looks down at his chest, oozing blood, considers it for several seconds, looks up at Keitt’s horrified face, gives an evil grin, spits, and says:


“Huh. Not enough gun.”


He once more steps forward, this time raising his hands as though to grab Keitt.

At this point, several other congressmen, government officials, and passers-by have entered the Senate chamber, drawn by the sound of the first gunshot, just in time to see Keitt shoot Huck a second time.

Keitt, in a confused panic, takes a step back, and, giving a strangled curse, shoots him again at point blank range; though this time the bullet merely grazes the side of his neck, the angle of the shot causes a dramatic spray of blood.

Pausing for only a split second, Huck closes the distance with Keitt, and snatches the gun out of his hand, saying:


“I’ll have that!”


He points it into Keitt’s face; Keitt goes cross-eyed, staring down the barrel of his own pistol inches from his nose.

All the onlookers, including Preston Brooks, are motionless, silent, staring at the unbelievable tableau of what is unfolding (though the bleeding and concussed Sumner is struggling up to his knees while Brooks is distracted).

After a moment’s consideration, Huck tosses the gun off to one side – it slides loudly across the Senate floor and thumps to a stop on the far side of the room.

Keitt starts to back away from him, but Huck grabs him by the lapels, lifting him up onto his toes, gives him a violent shake, and growls, teeth clenched in pain:


“That’s two for you. And now, one for me.”


Huck cocks his arm back, holding Keitt by one lapel, and slams his fist into Keitt’s face with all his strength, snapping his head back, shattering his nose, fracturing his cheek, and knocking out three of his teeth; Keitt is dazed and concussed.

He drops Keitt, who slumps to his knees with a quiet moan as teeth and blood pour out of his mouth, and steps around him, up to Preston Brooks.

Brooks, shocked and amazed by this turn of events, raises his cane in front of him, in a vague, half-hearted defensive move, and sputters:


“No – what – Now, look here – you – I – AH!”


Huck once again snatches the weapon out his opponent’s hand, and takes a step back.

Holding it out horizontally, showing it to Brooks, Huck slowly, deliberately, takes a grip on either end of the thick gutta-percha cane, strains, and snaps it in two with a shattering crack (an incredible feat without a point of leverage, especially considering his injured state, but made possible by the hysterical rage-and-adrenaline-fueled magnification of his naturally extraordinary strength – the strain actually causes several tiny stress-fractures in the bones of his hands that he won’t feel until much later).

Breathing heavily, his eyes blazing with rage, adrenaline coursing through his veins, his clothing soaked and his face splattered with his own blood – blood still pulsing from his chest and neck – he drops the two broken halves of the cane at Preston Brooks’ feet, and looming over him, he hisses:


“Take your pick. If’n it’s a fight you want, I’ll oblige you - fair and square. At your pleasure, sir… No? NO?!Then I reckon you’re a MISERABLE! GUTLESS! BACK-SHOOTIN’! YELLOW-BELLIED! NO-ACCOUNT CUR! Now you get out of my sight or I’ll whip you too!


Stunned by this red-faced stentorian bellowing (less than a foot away from Brooks’ face at the end of his tirade) and the mythic spectacle of what he has just seen, Brooks hesitates, half-turns, starts to speak, stops, and starts again, but when Huck glares at him and raises his bloody fist, Brooks cringes away and stumbles out of the Senate chamber.

Keitt, sitting in a half-conscious daze on the floor, tips over onto his side with a dull thud.



That’s all I’ve got. I don’t really have any clear idea of what might happen next, how this might affect the course of history, or the details of what would happen to the participants, aside from:

- Charles Sumner would not have been beaten as badly as OTL.
- Huck would survive the wounds he received, making a nearly full recovery over the course of the next few months; he would not seek re-election, or indeed ever seek elected office of any sort ever again, having acquired a deep distaste for politics.
- If Keitt or Brooks or anyone else challenged Huck to a duel over the affair, Huck would eagerly accept, and specify Bowie knives as the weapon of choice – and Huck would most likely win such a fight. On the other hand, I could imagine any number of angry Southerners blowing his head off without bothering to challenge or face him...
- There would be more than a dozen eye witnesses to the events that transpired in the Senate chamber that day, most of them US Senators and Congressmen.


Thoughts, comments? I’d be grateful for any attempt to seriously flesh out and/or develop an ATL based on this event.




“Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own,
He who secure within can say:
Tomorrow, do thy worst,
For I have lived today.”
 

Art

Monthly Donor
Lol . . .

The image of a slave-owner and scoundrel like Brooks being beat up by Huck Finn is just hilarious!!
 
Insert Tom Blankenship?

The image of a slave-owner and scoundrel like Brooks being beat up by Huck Finn is just hilarious!!

I'll say. It was high time of a fictional portrayal like this.

However, maybe it should be moved to an other areas of AH, or at the very least with a change of the name Huck Finn to his real life pal of Mark Twain -- Tom Blankenship (google for more, he was modeled exactly).

I remembered hearing he became a banker in the East Coast, but apparently that was another one of the gang and Tom Blankenship. became a Justice of the Peace, only, not higher in politics and way too young for being in the congress? You do have to be 25 for the house of representative and 30 for the Senate, where the attack took place I recall. Tom (Huck) could have been 4 years older than Mark Twain but there are doubts. Few have been elected at that age, and some younger (not able to enter office till arrived at a majority).

Sam Clemmons/Mark Twain was born in 1835, being 21 in 1856 when the Sumner beating took place. How is an unconnected tough guy, Tom Blankenship going to get elected so young or somehow get to the Senate as present person close enough to stop the fighting? The friend of the attacker did hold back others with a pistol, so fitting into the story. A page or congressional aide is not allowed on the floor, probably on the senate rules, and maybe not a representative, either. At the gates, and for what purpose, then?

Here are the real life counterparts:
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Ministers and deacons did not prophesy well for Sam Clemens and his mad companions. They spoke feelingly of state prison and the gallows. But the boys were a disappointing lot. Will Bowen became a fine river-pilot. Will Pitts was in due time a leading merchant and bank president. John Briggs grew into a well-to-do and highly respected farmer. Huck Finn– which is to say, Tom Blankenship–died an honored citizen and justice of the peace in a Western town. As for Sam Clemens, we shall see what he became as the chapters pass.

In Huckleberry Finn I have drawn Tom Blankenship exactly as he was. He was ignorant, unwashed, insufficiently fed; but he had as good a heart as ever any boy had. His liberties were totally unrestricted. He was the only really independent person--boy or man--in the community, and by consequence he was tranquilly and continuously happy and envied by the rest of us. And as his society was forbidden us by our parents the prohibition trebled and quadrupled its value, and therefore we sought and got more of his society than any other boy's.
- Mark Twain's Autobiography---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Assuming Mark Twain exists in this world, his life-story will sound very familiar. Maybe, name him Tom Blankenship, instead, and Twain will write Huck Finn as a biography, naturally fudging the truth a little, er, a lot. By the time radio starts spreading, his character will feature in quite a number of series, finally culminating in a few movies and a TV series in the 50's and 60's. Huck Finn, Man of the Frontier!
 
For Those Not Familiar With The Story (Whoops)

Obviously since Brooks was a Representative, not a Senator, Representatives were at least winked at on the Senate Floor. Whoops. Here is the story as wikipedia has it:
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On May 22, 1856, Brooks beat Senator Sumner with his heavy walking cane in the Senate chamber. The cause was a speech Sumner had made three days earlier, in which he had ridiculed a relative of Brooks, Senator Andrew Butler. Butler was not in attendance when the speech was read, but Sumner compared Butler with Don Quixote for embracing the harlot (prostitute) slavery as his mistress, and mocked Butler for a physical handicap. Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, who was also a subject of criticism during the speech, suggested to a colleague while Sumner was orating that "this damn fool [Sumner] is going to get himself shot by some other damn fool." (Jordan et al., The Americans)

Laurence M. Keitt



J.L. Magee's famous political cartoon of the attack on Sumner


At first intending to challenge Sumner to a duel, Brooks consulted with fellow South Carolina Rep. Laurence M. Keitt on dueling etiquette. Keitt instructed him that dueling was for gentlemen of equal social standing, and suggested that Sumner occupied a lower social status comparable to a drunkard due to the supposedly coarse language he had used during his speech. Brooks thus decided to attack Sumner with a cane.
Two days after the speech, on the afternoon of May 22, Brooks confronted Sumner as he sat writing at his desk in the almost empty Senate chamber. Brooks was accompanied by Keitt and Henry A. Edmundson of Virginia. Brooks said, "Mr. Sumner, I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is a libel on South Carolina, and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine." As Sumner began to stand up, Brooks began beating Sumner with his thick gutta-percha cane with a gold head. Sumner was trapped under the heavy desk (which was bolted to the floor), but Brooks continued to bash Sumner until he ripped the desk from the floor. By this time, Sumner was blinded by his own blood, and he staggered up the aisle and collapsed, lapsing into unconsciousness. Brooks continued to beat Sumner until he broke his cane, then quietly left the chamber. Several other senators attempted to help Sumner, but were blocked by Keitt who was brandishing a pistol and shouting "Let them be!" (Keitt would be censured for his actions and later died of wounds in 1864 fighting for the Confederacy during the US Civil War.)
Sumner was unable to return to his Senate duties for more than three years while he recovered. He later became one of the most influential Radical Republicans throughout the conduct of the American Civil War, and on through the early years of Reconstruction.

After The Attack

South Carolinians sent Brooks dozens of brand new canes, with one bearing the phrase, "Good job." The Richmond Enquirer crowed: "We consider the act good in conception, better in execution, and best of all in consequences. These vulgar abolitionists in the Senate must be lashed into submission." The University of Virginia's Jefferson Literary and Debating Society sent a gold-headed cane to replace Brooks' broken one.

Brooks survived an expulsion vote in the House but resigned his seat, claiming both that he "meant no disrespect to the Senate of the United States" by attacking Sumner and that he did not intend to kill him, for he would have used a different weapon if he had. His constituents returned him to Congress.
 
Assuming Mark Twain exists in this world, -- snip --- Huck Finn, Man of the Frontier!

Good one, Daniel Boone/Davy Crockett Disney TV to become Huck Finn/Tom Blankenship. But Mark Twain, of course, was real as the pen name turned AKA of Sam Clemmons. His counterpart in fiction was Tom Sawyer, for the record.

The Scum Himself, Representative Brooks:


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