Violence begins at home: lessons on language, violence, and manhood in the slaveholding South, 1819-1846

Mexico will poison me: the disappointments of war, 1846-1849

Becoming the man behind the cane: fighting over slavery in congress and Kansas, 1850-1856

In the shadow of a cane: navigating clashing cultures of violence, 1856

My representative character: political violence, polarization, and the road to the Civil War, 1856-1861

Epilogue: remembering the man behind the cane.