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

[475] to have the papers on his desk cared for.¹ Morgan and others held him up as he walked to the anteroom to await there a physician who had been sent for.² The blood flowed profusely, soaking the collar and neck of his shirt, and penetrating through his coat at the shoulder so as even to appear on the inside of the padding, and spotting also the back and sides of the coat, as well as the waistcoat and trousers.³ The shirt-sleeves of Morgan, who had held his head, were saturated with blood;⁴ his lead was still bleeding copiously when the physician arrived, the blood flowing upon the latter's shirt while the wounds were being dressed.⁵ At this time it was thought he could not survive. Dr. Boyle, whom a messenger had met on the way, was brought quickly; he found that the skull had not been fractured, as was feared. There were two gashes on the back part of the head, one above each car,—one being in length two and a quarter inches, and the other nearly two inches. Both went through the scalp to the bone, laying it bare. One was nearly an inch in depth, ‘cut in and down’ where it is but an eighth of an inch to the scalp, being ‘cut under, as it were, and very ragged.’ Both of these gashes were at once sewed up. There were other wounds or bruises, not requiring to be dressed, on the back of the head, on the face near the temple, and on the hands, arms, and shoulders. Fortunately, the blows had fallen on the thick part of the skull, and there was a mass of hair on the head; if they had happened to strike the temple, a fatal result might have immediately followed. As it was there was the danger of the concussion of the brain, or of erysipelas.⁶

The dressing of the wounds being finished, Wilson, who hearing of the assault had returned to the Capitol, assisted by Buffinton of the House, took Sumner in a carriage to his lodgings at Rev. Mr. Sampson's, on Sixth Street.⁷ He was still in a state of partial stupor while on the way. As soon as he reached his