lifted, he snatched a bowie knife from
his pocket and dashed for the man who had insulted him.

From every direction rose the shouts and cries of the excited House.

"Stop him!"

"Hold him!"

"Great God!"

"Judge--Judge!"

The wildest uproar followed. Half a dozen members threw themselves on
the old man, dragged him to the floor, pinned him down and wrested the
knife from his grasp.

When the eloquent gentleman from Tennessee saw that his assailant was
disarmed and safely guarded by six stalwart men he struck an attitude,
expanded his chest, smote it with both hands and exclaimed with
melodramatic gusto:

"I defy the steel of the assassin!"

The House burst into shouts of uncontrollable laughter, and adjourned
for the night.

Another scene of more tragic violence occurred in the Senate--a hand to
hand fight between William L. Yancey and Ben Hill. The Senator from
Georgia threw his antagonist across a desk, held him there in a grip of
steel and pounded his face until dragged away by friends. Yancey's spine
was wrenched in the struggle, and it was rumored that this injury caused
his death. It possibly hastened the end already sure from age, disease
and careless living.

Committees from this assembly of law makers who attempted to instruct
the conscientious, hard-working man of genius the Southern people had
made their President found little comfort in their efforts.

Davis received them with punctilious ceremony. His manners were always
those of a gentleman--but he never allowed them to return to their
onerous work in the Debating Society without a clear idea of his views.
They were never expressed with violence. But the ice sometimes formed on
the window panes if he stood near while talking.

A Congressional Committee were demanding the restoration of Beauregard
to command.

"General Beauregard asked me to relieve him, gentlemen--"

"Only on furlough for illness," interrupted the Chairman.

"And you have forced him into retirement!" added a member.

The President rose, walked to the window, gazed out on the crowded
street for a moment and turned, suddenly confronting his tormentors. He
spoke with quiet dignity, weighing each word with cold precision:

"If the whole world asked me to restore General Beauregard to the
command which I have given to Braxton Bragg, I would refuse." He resumed
his seat and the Committee retired to Senator Barton's house where they
found a sympathetic ear.

Bragg was p