There are gaps in my knowledge of American history. For one, neither in school nor
subsequently did I learn much about the period from
Presidents Ulysses Grant to Teddy
Roosevelt, except that it was the time of the
reconstruction after the Civil War, a pretty
disastrous period, especially for the freed slaves in the
South.
Reading Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness,
Medicine, and the Murder of the
President, by Candice Millard, filled in some of that gap
in my knowledge.
This book takes readers through the life of James Abram
Garfield’s rise from near
nothing to the Presidency of the United States, and his
assassination at the hands of a
delusional mad man who thought he received a divine
revelation to kill President
Garfield.
James A. Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. He was a prolific reader of classics, science and philosophy, and an eloquent speaker. Nominated for president in 1880 by the Republicans against his will, he didn’t campaign for himself. Nor did he do so earlier when he ran for the Senate – spending a whopping $150 on that campaign. He literally was born in a log cabin in rural Ohio, with extraordinarily effort he got an education, and was a college President by the time he was in his mid-twenties.
He was highly intelligent, articulate, and compassionate. The treatment of blacks may have been much different if he would have had the chance to serve out his term. During his brief time as President, he engaged in a fierce battle with the corrupt political establishment. But four months after his inauguration, a deranged office seeker tracked Garfield down and shot him in the back. Incredibly there were no secret service body guards for presidents at that time, nor for many years to come. The shots didn’t kill Garfield.
The drama of what happened subsequently is a powerful story of a Washington in turmoil. The unhinged assassin’s half-delivered strike left the wounded president as the object of a bitter behind-the-scenes struggle for power—over his administration, over the nation’s future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care. A team of physicians administered shockingly archaic treatments to disastrous effect. As his condition became worse he suffered excruciating pain for over two months, though he remained kind and uncomplaining throughout.
One image that grips the attention is doctors
repeatedly inserted unsterilized instruments and fingers into the wound in
search of the bullet. Alexander Graham
Bell, the inventor of the telephone, worked around the clock to invent a new
device capable of finding the bullet. It
turned out that the bullet was lodged in a place the doctors never looked, and
Bell’s invention could not find it because the doctor in charge refused to
search on the opposite side of where the bullet had entered Garfield’s body.
The time when Garfield was lying deathly ill and injured in
the White House and after his death people in all parts of the nation were in
anxious vigil and mourning (even, apparently, Southerners). It was a time of a united nation. Both of my Aaker grandparents, Olaf and
Ellen, were born in 1880, the year James A Garfield was elected the 20th
President of the USA. My Romo
grandparents were about ten years old that year. I wonder how much was covered in their
history lessons in country school about the Garfield presidency. Though I don’t ever remember talking politics
with my Aaker grandparents, they were probably Republicans. But then being
Republican meant something different in those post Lincoln, Garfield, Roosevelt
days. Candice Millard writes a very readable and well researched story. I recently read her first book, River of
Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey, and found that an equally engaging
story I also knew little about. I give
her an A+ for both books. September 16,
2021
