Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 3

[468] and as a participant under certain circumstances; and Edmundson, who said at once that he himself had only a ‘little briar stick’ with him, evidently so understood Brooks.¹ Brooks's reference in his talk with Edmundson to the chance that Sumner might have friends with him indicated that he wished Edmundson at least to resist their interference.

Brooks waited with Edmundson for Sumner on the grounds fifteen minutes, and both then went to the Capitol, parting in the rotunda,—Brooks going to the Senate chamber, and his companion to the hall of the House.² It was just before the two houses met at noon on Wednesday that Edmundson met Brooks in the Capitol grounds. Brooks had been probably looking for Sumner at least an hour or so; and he said in his letter to the president of the Senate, May 29,³ that he made careful search for him on both Wednesday and Thursday. At this time on Wednesday, when he met Edmundson and his purpose was fully formed, he knew the speech only by hearsay, as, according to his own statement, he heard but little of it on Monday, and none of it on Tuesday;⁴ and the Globe which contained it was not distributed till Wednesday after the session began, some minutes after his interview with Edmundson.⁵ This shows that it was not any particular expressions of the speech, but rather the speech as a whole, and Sumner's position as an antislavery leader, which were in his mind as an incentive to his deed.

On Thursday at noon, within a few minutes before the two Houses began the daily session, Edmundson met Brooks again near the same spot as on the day before, this time sitting alone in the gate-house, or porter's lodge, at the entrance of the Capitol grounds, and looking for Sumner, but looking in vain, as the senator had for some reason, perhaps to consult the library, driven earlier to the Capitol. Edmundson represented this, as well as the first meeting in front of the Capitol, as ‘casual,’ as also their presence together in the Senate chamber; but so many ‘casual’ meetings indicate concert. Brooks told Edmundson that ‘he could not overlook the insult;⁶ that he had scarcely slept any the night before, thinking of it, and that it ought to ’