Prologue -- A muster of moths : the Forty-third Congress of the United States -- Charge at New Market Heights : debate in the House of Representatives -- Purblind child of darkness : Sumner's civil rights bill passes the Senate -- The deadest corpse : no exit in the House -- Horace Redfield's journey : the long hot summer of 1874 -- The shirt of Nessus : elections in Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia -- Quintessence of abominations : elections in Tennessee and Alabama -- Carry the news to Hiram : elections in Florida and Louisiana -- Greeley's ghost : elections in Arkansas, Texas, Missouri, Maryland -- Taliaferro's ghost : border states and the north -- Suffer the little white children : vox populi reconsidered -- If ruin comes from this : a House decided -- Dear Tom's deception : birth of the civil rights act -- De pervisions, josiar : civil rights dawn -- Epilogue : then and now.