List of United States Congress members killed or wounded in office

This article is missing information about the many antebellum brawls in Congress detailed in the Freeman book. Please expand the article to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page. (May 2023)

U.S. Congress members who died in office
1790–1899 1900–1949 1950–1999 2000–present Killed or wounded
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Since the United States Congress was established with the 1st Congress in 1789, fourteen of its members have been killed while in office, and fourteen have suffered serious injuries from attacks. The members of Congress were either injured or killed by someone intending serious harm, or there is evidence of lethal intent by an unknown assailant (such as the two congressmen who died of the National Hotel disease). The first member of Congress to be killed or wounded in office was Henry Wharton Conway who was killed in a duel in 1827. The most recent death occurred in 1983 when Korean Air Lines Flight 007, carrying Larry McDonald, was shot down over the Pacific Ocean. The most recent Congress member to be injured was Angie Craig who was assaulted in 2023.

All of the 14 Congressmen killed in office were male and 10 were Democrats, three were Republicans, and one was a Democratic-Republican. Four members died in duels, and a total of ten (three senators, six members of the House of Representatives, and one territory delegate to the House) died from gunshot wounds.

Fourteen Congress members have been wounded while in office. Six of the wounded were Republicans, six were Democrats, and one member each from the Anti-Jacksonian and Whig parties. Two were women, and four were senators. Five of those injured were wounded during the 1954 United States Capitol shooting incident.

Lists

Killed

Party colors: Democratic-Republican Democratic Republican

Member		Chamber	State (district)	Date of incident	Perpetrator(s)	Cause	Incident
Henry Wharton Conway		House	Arkansas Territory (At-large delegate)	October 29, 1827	Robert Crittenden	Duel	Died 11 days after being shot in the chest during a duel with Crittenden near the confluence of the White and Mississippi rivers
Spencer Darwin Pettis	–	House	Missouri (1st at-large seat)	August 28, 1831	Thomas Biddle	Duel	Both Pettis and Biddle sustained fatal gunshot wounds during a duel on Bloody Island in Illinois.
Jonathan Cilley		House	Maine (3rd district)	February 24, 1838	William Graves	Duel	Shot by Graves, the Whig Congressman from Kentucky's 8th district, during a duel on the Marlboro Pike in Maryland
John Gallagher Montgomery	–	House	Pennsylvania (12th district)	April 24, 1857	Unknown (disputed)	Poisoning (disputed)	Several people staying at the National Hotel in Washington, D.C., died of National Hotel disease during this time period. It is disputed whether the "disease" was due to deliberate poisoning or accidental food poisoning.
John A. Quitman		House	Mississippi (5th district)	July 17, 1858	Unknown (disputed)	Poisoning (disputed)
David Colbreth Broderick		Senate	California (Senator)	September 13, 1859	David Terry	Duel	Broderick and Terry, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of California, took part in a duel in San Francisco. Broderick was shot and died three days later.
Edward Dickinson Baker		Senate	Oregon (Senator)	October 21, 1861	7th Brigade, 4th Division of the Confederate Army of the Potomac (under the command of Nathan Evans)	Battle	Died during the Battle of Ball's Bluff, while assigned command of a brigade in Brigadier General Charles Pomeroy Stone's division, guarding fords along the Potomac River in Virginia. The Confederate soldiers were commanded by Brigadier General Nathan George Evans.
Cornelius S. Hamilton		House	Ohio (8th district)	December 22, 1867	Thomas Hamilton	Murder	Killed by his insane 18-year-old son, Thomas, in Marysville, Ohio.
James M. Hinds		House	Arkansas (2nd district)	October 22, 1868	George Clark	Assassination	Killed in Indian Bays in Monroe County, Arkansas, after being shot in the back by George A. Clark, a member of the Ku Klux Klan and the secretary of the Democratic committee of the county
John M. Pinckney		House	Texas (8th district)	April 24, 1905	Unknown (riot started by J. N. Brown)	Mass shooting	A political event in Hempstead, Texas, turned violent when one of the participants, J. N. Brown, began shooting. Other attendees began to shoot as well and a riot broke out. Pinckney, his brother Tom, and Brown were all killed at the scene.
Huey Long		Senate	Louisiana (Senator)	September 8, 1935	Carl Weiss (possibly)	Assassination	Died two days after Weiss fired a handgun at him at close range inside the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge
Robert F. Kennedy		Senate	New York (Senator)	June 5, 1968	Sirhan Sirhan	Assassination	Shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after giving his victory speech in the California primary; he died about 25 hours later.
Leo Ryan		House	California (11th district)	November 18, 1978	Peoples Temple (under the direction of Jim Jones)	Mass shooting	While on an official visit to Guyana to investigate the activities of the Peoples Temple group led by Jim Jones, Ryan was shot multiple times while boarding an airplane leaving Jonestown.
Larry McDonald		House	Georgia (7th district)	September 1, 1983	Soviet Far East District Air Defense Forces	Aircraft shootdown	McDonald was a passenger on board Korean Air Lines Flight 007 which was shot down over the Sea of Japan near Sakhalin island by Soviet interceptors piloted by Major Gennadiy Osipovich on the orders of General Anatoly Kornukov, Commander of Sokol Air Base.

Wounded

Party colors: Anti-Jacksonian Democratic Republican Whig

Member	State (district)	Date of incident	Perpetrator(s)	Cause	Incident
William Stanbery	Ohio (8th district)	April 13, 1832	Sam Houston	Assault	After Stanbery accused Houston of profiteering off Andrew Jackson's forced relocation of Native Americans, Houston confronted Stanbery in Washington, D.C., and beat him repeatedly with a hickory walking stick. During the fight Stanbery pulled a gun, placed it on Houston's chest, and pulled the trigger, but the gun misfired.
Alexander H. Stephens	Georgia (8th district)	September 4, 1848	Francis H. Cone	Assault	Francis Cone, an Associate Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, called Stephens a "traitor to the South" due to Stephens's move to table the Clayton Compromise. When confronted about this in front of Atlanta's Thompson Hotel, Stephens struck Cone with his walking stick and Cone responded by stabbing Stephens six times in the hand and chest.
Charles Sumner	Massachusetts (Senator)	May 22, 1856	Preston Brooks	Assault	Representative Preston Brooks, a Democrat from South Carolina's 4th district, assaulted Sumner with a cane on the floor of the Senate in the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The attack followed Sumner's verbal attacks on pro-slavery politicians (including Brooks's relative, Senator Andrew Butler).
Josiah Bushnell Grinnell	Iowa (4th district)	June 14, 1866	Lovell Rousseau	Assault	Grinnell was assaulted with an iron-tipped cane by Rousseau, an Unconditional Unionist Congressman from Kentucky's 7th district, on the east portico of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., in retaliation for derogatory statements he made earlier. Grinnell was pummeled on the "head and face until the cane broke," and was heavily bruised.
Alvin Morell Bentley	Michigan (8th district)	March 1, 1954	Rafael Cancel Miranda, Andres Figueroa Cordero, Irvin Flores, Lolita Lebrón	Mass Shooting	1954 Capitol shooting: Armed Puerto Rican nationalists shot the representatives from the Ladies Gallery of the House of Representatives in the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.
Clifford Davis	Tennessee (10th district)
George Hyde Fallon	Maryland (4th district)
Ben F. Jensen	Iowa (7th district)
Kenneth A. Roberts	Alabama (4th district)
John C. Stennis	Mississippi (Senator)	January 29, 1973	Tyrone Marshall, John Marshall, Derrick Holloway	Mugging	Stennis was shot twice outside his home in Washington, D.C., during a mugging.
Gabby Giffords	Arizona (8th district)	January 8, 2011	Jared Lee Loughner	Mass Shooting	Giffords was shot in the head during the 2011 Tucson mass shooting, an assassination attempt on Giffords which occurred at a constituency meeting held in a supermarket parking lot in Casas Adobes, Arizona.
Steve Scalise	Louisiana (1st district)	June 14, 2017	James T. Hodgkinson III	Mass Shooting	Scalise was shot in the hip by a gunman targeting and firing indescriminately upon the Republican congressional delegation, during a practice session for the 2017 Congressional Baseball Game at the Eugene Simpson Stadium Park in Alexandria, Virginia.
Rand Paul	Kentucky (Senator)	November 3, 2017	Rene Boucher	Assault	Paul was tackled from behind by his neighbor, Rene Boucher, during an altercation. Paul sustained five fractured ribs, including three displaced fractures, as well as "cuts around his mouth".
Angie Craig	Minnesota (2nd district)	February 9, 2023	Kendrick Hamline	Assault	Craig was punched and grabbed by the neck by Hamline in the elevator of her Washington, D.C., apartment. Craig defended herself from Hamline and sustained cuts and bruising.

References

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