James A. Garfield, A Book Report
Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard
A Book Report by Bobby Everett Smith
January 27, 2018
Spoiler Alert
Setting
White House, Washington, D.C. and around the world, 1880’s.
Characters
James A. Garfield, 20th President of the United States, Republican from Mentor, Ohio, Brigadier General for the Union Army in Civil War. U.S. Congressman and Senator from Ohio before nomination to be president in 1880.
Lucretia Rudolph Garfield, wife of President Garfield. Mother of five children by Garfield, Abram, James, Mollie, Irvin, and Harry.
Dr. D. Willard Bliss, President’s physician after assassination gunshot. Took charge of his recovery.
Robert Todd Lincoln, Secretary of War under Garfield. Assisted in getting him to treatment after shooting.
Dr. Susan Edson, Physician for Lucretia, president’s wife. One of first female physicians.
Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone. Offered scientific and technical support for finding the bullet fired by Garfield’s assassin.
Joseph Stanley Brown, Garfield’s personal secretary while he was president.
Charles Guiteau, assassin who shot Garfield. A deranged activist who believed it was God’s destiny for him to “remove” the president.
Roscoe Conkling, Senator from New York, adversary with Garfield in presidential nomination.
Chester A. Arthur, vice president under Garfield, assumed the presidency when Garfield died.
Ulysses S. Grant, General of Union Army in Civil War, personally accepted surrender of General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, 18th president of the United States for two terms. Possible run for third term but defeated for nomination at Republican National Convention.
James Blaine, Secretary of State under Garfield. Was with the president when he was shot.
General William T. Sherman, general in Union Army. Assassin wrote letter to Sherman before the shooting asking him to recover him from the police, thinking Sherman would be appreciative of the assassination.
Joseph Lister, discovered the critical importance of antisepsis. His scientific research was largely ignored during the treatment of Garfield for gunshot.
Dr. Frank Hamilton, one of the doctors who worked on Garfield after the shooting. Ignored studies of Lister. Preferred “open air treatments”.
Rutherford Hayes, 19th President of the United States, Garfield succeeded him as president.
Winfield Scott Hancock, Democratic candidate for president against Garfield in 1880 election.
Executive Summary
On July 2, 1881, James A. Garfield, president of the United States, was shot at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington D.C. by Charles J. Guiteau, a deranged lawyer and writer.
The president was transported to the White House for treatment in a one-horse carriage, the best means of transportation in those days.
The president was not taken to a hospital because they were known to be dirty, smelly, and dangerous. He would get better treatment at home with doctors by his side.
Two bullet wounds were not immediately fatal for Garfield, but his doctors’ unsterilized treatment generated infection that caused his death on September 19.1981.
Guiteau was convicted of the murder and was hanged in June 1882. He blamed the doctors and divine inspiration for Garfield’s death. Garfield is not given much credit for his short term (less than 7 months) in office. Much of that time he spent trying to recover from the gun short wounds and the rest just getting his cabinet set up and ready to go.
When Garfield took office as the 20th president, the Civil War was just over no more than 15 years ago; the country was still trying to reintegrate the southern states back into the Union, and over four million black slaves were trying to learn how to contribute to our society as free people and citizens. The economy was doing well most of the time and major inventions were rampant–Inventions like electricity, the telephone, and sterilization.
Garfield was born in Ohio near Cleveland in 1831. His father died when he was 13 leaving his mother and four children with 100 acres of farmland but little else in the way of assets. His mother survived and raised his children with a sense of demand for a good education. Garfield finished college and a law degree. By the time he was 26 years old, he was president of Western Reserve Electric Institute.
Garfield was a strong abolitionist and joined the Civil War where he was promoted to Brigadier General in recognition of his performance in several major battles. After the war he was elected to the United States House of Representatives in Ohio and later to the U.S. Senate.
He was selected to nominate John Sherman as a Republican candidate for president at the Republican National Convention in 1880. Garfield did not want to be a nominee himself, but the convention approached the 36th ballot trying to decide who their candidate would be. Garfield had made an impression on the Convention with his nominating speech of Sherman and suddenly on the 36th ballot, Garfield was chosen as a compromise candidate over Sherman, Grant, and Blaine. He was now the Republican nominee for president running against Winfield S. Hancock, the Democratic candidate.
Charles Guiteau obtained a law degree and set up a private practice. He thought of himself as a man chosen by God for great things. He survived a collision on a steamboat in New York harbor and took that as a sign that he was God’s chosen man to kill the president.
Guiteau shot the president at the Baltimore-Potomac train station.
Dr. D. Willard Bliss was called to treat the president for the gun shot wounds and he appointed himself as the sole doctor for the president’s treatment despite much wrangling among ten or more doctors who wanted to oversee the president’s recovery.
Sterilization was not practiced much in the United States at that time and Dr. Bliss frequently poked into the bullet hole looking for the second bullet which was lodged in Garfield’s body. The probing created infection which eventually killed the president. He died on September 18, 1881.
Garfield is not well respected as a president, but he probably would have been if he lived through his term. He was well-educated, smart, and an exceptional speaker. Garfield was succeeded by Chester A. Arthur, who was not expected to be a good president, but he turned out better than expected.
The Story
Early Years
James A. Garfield was born in Mentor, Ohio in 1831, the edge of the American frontier. His father died when he was 13 years old leaving his Eliza, his mother to raise four children in a log cabin. The parents of Garfield had purchased 100 acres of land for $2 per acre a few years earlier and on the father’s death, Eliza, was hard pressed to raise her four children and as she desired to educate them properly.
In the fall of 1851, Garfield was accepted to the Western Reserve Electric Institute, a small preparatory school in Ohio. He worked as a school janitor to pay his tuition and living expenses. In 1854, Garfield was accepted into Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He graduated with honors and by the time he was 26 years old, he was president of Western Reserve Electric Institute back in Ohio.
Law Career and Politics
Two things ended Garfield’s academic pursuits: politics and war. In 1859 he became an Ohio state senator. In 1861 he volunteered into the Union Army as a Lieutenant Colonel in the 42nd Ohio Regiment. He received recognition for his leadership at the Battle of Middle Creek where he soundly defeated Confederate troops. For this achievement he was promoted to Brigadier General.
Throughout his life, Garfield was an ardent abolitionist. In the fall of 1862, Garfield was elected to the United States Congress from Ohio, giving up his commission in the Army.
One of Garfield’s first acts in Congress was to introduce a resolution that would allow Blacks to vote and enjoy the full benefits of citizenship.
1880 Presidential Nomination
Garfield did not aspire to be president of the United States. In fact, he stated not long before the Republican National Convention in 1880 that, “I have so often seen the evil effects of the presidential fever on my colleagues, that I am determined it shall not seize me.” He approached the national convention with a feeling of dread.
At the convention, all Republicans were split into two groups: Stalwarts and Half-breeds. Garfield placed himself in the latter group favoring reconciliation with the South and other reforms. Stalwarts only had one candidate—Ulysses S. Grant. Half-breeds had two: John Sherman, brother to the famous civil war general, and James G. Blaine, Senator from Maine.
Garfield was not a consideration to be nominated for the presidency. Known as the best speaker in the Republican Party, he was chosen to nominate John Sherman to be the Republican candidate for president. That was not a good task for Garfield because, frankly, he did not favor Sherman as the best man to be the next president.
One additional problem about delivering the speech was that it catered to Roscoe Conklin, Senior Senator from New York, arguably the most powerful man in the Republican Party and a favorite of the spoil system. Garfield was not very friendly with Conklin even though he was a solid abolitionist and a supporter of the 14th Amendment. Conkling was a bitter enemy of Blaine, the contestant most favored by Garfield despite Garfield’s opinion that Blaine was too enamored of the White House, a goal which detracted from Blaine’s overall character.
James Joy nominated Blaine; Conkling nominated Grant, and Garfield nominated Sherman. Garfield gave such an inspiring speech, before it was over the entire political body had begun to shout, “Garfield for President.”
Results of the first ballot were Grant, 304 votes, Blaine, 284 votes, and Sherman, 93 votes. No one had a winning majority. On the third ballot Garfield received one vote but no one still had a majority. On the 36th ballot despite his objections, Garfield was nominated as the Republican candidate, winning 399 votes, 20 more than the majority needed for the nomination.
Charles Guiteau
Charles Guiteau was on the steamship Stonington when it collided with another ship in New York harbor. Guiteau was one of four survivors and he took the survival as a sign that he was one of God’s chosen few and he had a divine obligation to follow God’s will.
Over the previous 14 years, Guiteau had opened and closed several law firms. He was always desperate for money even though he had successfully qualified to practice law in both Chicago and New York. Guiteau traveled by boarding trains without a ticket and then evading the conductor and he lived in boarding houses by running up the maximum possible bill without paying and then moving elsewhere to start the cycle again. He borrowed money from acquaintances whenever possible, rarely repaying the debt.
Guiteau had delusions about his ability to win favor with high-level politicians in the United States. He wanted to become the Consulate for a major country like France or Austria.
The Presidential Campaign
In 1880 it was not considered dignified for a presidential candidate to travel from town to town soliciting votes. Instead Garfield set up in his home in Mentor, Ohio, waiting for voters and supporters to come to him, the so-called Front Porch Campaign.
Freed slaves were Garfield’s most ardent supporters but support from other groups continued to grow throughout his campaign.
Voter turnout on the 1880 election was 78% and the forecast was a close race to be decided on November 2, 1880. When Garfield woke up on November 3, supporters told him he was the President-elect. “There is a tone of sadness running through this triumph,” he wrote to a friend.
Inauguration
March 4, 1881 marked the day of inauguration when Garfield would replace Rutherford Hayes as president of the United States. Garfield had written his own inauguration address and had made numerous edits and revisions to try to express his vision for the country.
Garfield spoke about the legacy of the Civil War and the rights of freed slaves to enjoy the full rights of citizenship. “So far as my authority can lawfully extend, …blacks will continue to enjoy the full rights of citizenship and equal protection under the Constitution and the laws.”
Senator Conkling hoped that he would be able to control Garfield the way that he had controlled other politicians in the past. When Conkling realized that Garfield would not be a pushover during the search for cabinet members for the new president, he became infuriated and to fight even harder to make Garfield look bad.
No one in the Republican Party was more Conkling’s man than Chester Arthur, the new vice president under Garfield. Conkling had complete control over Arthur. Arthur even lived in Conkling’s home in Washington. With his relationship with Arthur, Conkling initially had little doubt that he would be able to control the president.
What Conkling did not understand was that Garfield was a good fighter and he was determined not to come under the undue influence of the political bully, Conklin.
Office Seekers
At the White House, Garfield had “calling hours,” 10:30 to 1:30 daily, Monday through Friday. Office seekers lined up daily at the White House where they had free entrance, looking for jobs. Joseph Stanley Brown, a man in his early 20’s was Garfield’s private secretary, and his only real protection from the public.
Charles Guiteau was one of the most persistent of the office seekers coming to the White House daily. Not only did he show up every day, he stayed as long as possible and when he could get an interview with Brown or anyone else, he expressed his desire to become the Consulate in Austria, an “illustration of unparalleled audacity and impudence.”
In addition to Garfield and Arthur, Guiteau also pursued James Blaine, the new Secretary of State. After weeks of solicitation, Blaine finally gave Guiteau an honest answer to his quest for the consulate: “you are not being considered nor will you ever receive an appointment to any consulate.” Blaine told Guiteau. “Never ask about the consulship again.”
Guiteau was livid, vowing to get rid of Blaine and Garfield.
On June 1, Guiteau made the decision to kill the president. He believed that this action would propel him into a position of national celebrity. It was a divine order, he told himself, as he began to prepare for the assassination.
Assassination
Guiteau needed a gun for the killing but he had never fired a gun before and he did not have enough money, $15, to buy one,. He borrowed the money from an acquaintance and purchased the pistol in a downtown gun shop. He took the 44-caliber revolver (British Bulldog with an Ivory handle) to the banks of the Potomac River, just outside D.C. where he practiced.
Guiteau knew that he would be arrested but he expected General Sherman and Chester Arthur to rescue him and protect him from trial and any punishment for this crime. Guiteau had the feeling that he was doing a good thing and that most of the American people would admire what he had done. He expected book sales, speaking engagements and tours around the country telling people (for a fee) what he had done and how.
On July 2, 1881, Garfield left the White House attended by his Secretary of State, James Blaine, heading for the Baltimore-Potomac Train Station in Washington, D.C. Guiteau had transferred his domicile to the Riggs House, without paying the bill, knowing that he would be soon arrested and put in jail. He left the hotel carrying with him his pistol, ammunition, a small knife, and a stack of letters, one of which was addressed to General Sherman.
“I shot the president,” he wrote. “… I am going to jail. Please order your troops to take possession of the jail at once.” Thirty minutes before the time for the president to arrive, Guiteau proceeded to the train station at 6th and B Street in D.C. He arranged for a carriage to take him to the jail and got his shoes shined. He asked a newsstand attendant if he could leave some papers to which the attendant agreed, stacking the letters and documents on a pile of newspapers to be sold later in the day. He stepped back into the waiting room waiting for Garfield and Blaine to arrive.
After Garfield and Blaine had walked into the waiting room and when he was about three feet away, Guiteau calmly raised his pistol, pointed it at Garfield’s back and pulled the trigger. The first shot went into Garfield’s right arm, passing through and hitting the tool box of a worker walking by. Guiteau fired a second shot which hit Garfield in the back. The force of the bullet knocked the president forward, and he screamed as fell to the ground, vomiting.
As Guiteau raced for the exit, a ticket agent grabbed him by the shirt and wrestled him to the ground. “This is the man who shot the president,” he said. A group of black men watching the scene, cried, “lynch him.” A police officer seized the assassin and shook him. Another group treated Garfield the best they could.
In police custody, Guiteau believed that he had accomplished his divine mission and that now all his troubles would soon be over. He expected fame and fortune for his act. He was happy for the first time in a long time. “Thank God, it’s all over.”
Robert Todd Lincoln was at the station waiting for the president when he got the news of the shooting. He ran to where the president lay on the floor of the station and took charge of the situation. He called Dr. D. Willard Bliss, who was one of the most respected doctors in the nations capital. Two other doctors arrived at the scene each attempting to comfort the president. Garfield was loaded onto a stretcher and then into a carriage and taken back to the White House.
Garfield’s secretary, Joseph Brown, raced through the White House arranging a room, calling for security and taking care of details required to treat the president when he arrived back from the train station. When Garfield arrived, he was taken to a waiting room on the third floor of the White House where Dr. Bliss took charge as the attending physician.
Bliss and the other doctors tried to find the second bullet which was lodged somewhere internally in the president. At that time, most doctors in the U.S. did not accept the concept of germs, infection, and antisepsis which had been discovered and written about by Dr. Joseph Lister 16 years earlier. Many doctors in Europe had studied Dr. Lister’s research and were practicing the sterilization of tools, hands, and operating room equipment but American doctors had not yet accepted that type of treatment. As a result, the practice, which exacerbated the problem, was to poke a finger into the bullet hole and try to reach it and pull it out of the body.
Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, thought that he had a method of finding the bullet. He presented his invention to Dr. Bliss, who allowed him to test it on the president. Due to some minor set-up problems with the experimental equipment, the trial to find the bullet failed.
Doctors at first did not think that the bullet wound was fatal. Garfield was conscious, talking, polite and humorous with all those working on him.
On July 21, Lucretia, the president’s wife, told Harriet Blaine that she considered her husband to be “out of danger.”
The next day Garfield suffered a relapse and began to sink, the effect of infection of his organs around the bullet site and the unsterile conditions with which he had been treated from the time of the shooting until the present.
Garfield’s condition deteriorated further. The area around the bullet wound was infected and the infection was spreading through his body. He weight had dropped from 210 to 130 pounds. He was in desperate condition. Dr. Bliss was biased in his treatment and his recognition of the infection that was on the verge of killing the president.
On September 5, Garfield made it known to Dr. Bliss that he no longer wished to endure the White House treatments. He wanted to go to the sea and despite Dr. Bliss’s objections, Garfield was transferred by train to Elberon, N.J. where he was situated in a cottage by the sea.
Garfield knew that he was dying but he remained kind, patient, cheerful and grateful. He died at 10:35 pm on September 5, just two months from the time he was shot.
An autopsy was completed the next day and found that the bullet was on the opposite side of where Dr. Bliss thought it was. It was resting near the pancreas and covered with infection almost throughout the entire body. The final diagnosis was” a fatal gunshot was the cause of death.”
By 2:15 a.m. on September 25, Chester A. Arthur was sworn in as the twenty-first president of the United States. He seemed totally unprepared for the responsibility that came with that office. Nor was he widely welcomed by citizens of the U. S., some of whom even threatened armed revolution to prevent his presidency.
Garfield’s body was returned to the capitol on the same train that had brought him to Elberon. Thousands of Americans stood by the tracks expressing their respect for their president. The same type of crowd gathered in Washington to honor him.
Meanwhile back in his jail cell Guiteau was not aware of the president’s death until he heard a guard talking about it in the hallway. Guiteau still believed that he had the support and sympathy of the American people.
On October 14, he submitted his plea of “Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity.”
“It was God’s act, not mine,” he told the judge. His trial began on November 14. Eleven white men and one black man were selected for the jury. Guiteau admitted the shooting but denied the killing. Malpractice by the doctors was the true cause of the president’s death, he said.
Guiteau was found guilty after a three-month trial including testimony from expert witnesses, members of Congress, and even the president. He was found guilty and given the death sentence, death by hanging.
On June 30, 1882, Guiteau was hung.
Not much remains today of Garfield’s legacy as president. He only had a few months and of those two were in disabled sickness. Chester Arthur, on the other hand, came to the presidency recognized as a follower of Roscoe Conklin. He is best known today for passing the first civil service act for government employees.
Rating
Four stars out of five. One of the most interesting parts of the book is Garfield’s treatment. His physician and other American doctors had not accepted the concept of germs and sterilization a new medical procedure documented in Europe by Dr. Joseph Lister.
Garfield did not have enough time in office to establish himself as one of the top presidents, but he probably would have achieved that recognition if he survived.
I recommend reading this book if you have a thirst for knowledge about American History.
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