“Of course I deprecate war, but if it is brought to my door the bringer will find me at home.”
James Garfield, Major General of the Union Army in the Civil War
Candice Millard is my literary crush. Many years ago I read The River of Doubt, her telling of Teddy Roosevelt’s death-defying post-presidential trip through the Amazon rainforest. I loved it. Imagine my delight when I realized the most highly recommended book about James Garfield was also her handiwork. Hear me now fellow history buffs, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President is a must read. How could you not go for a book with that title?
I’m guessing you know about as much about James Garfield as I did before I read this book. Which is to say, nothing. I maybe could have come up with his name as one of the assassinated presidents at bar trivia night. Once I finished, however, I found myself thinking he might have been one of the all-time greats had he not been cut down in his prime by a madman (or, as the book would explain, medical malpractice).
It’s the great What if? Just four months into his presidency, James Garfield was shot in the back by a delusional office seeker. By office seeker, I mean a guy who thought he was ordained by God to kill the president and if he did, he’d be acquitted and made minister to France. Charles Guiteau, said nutjob, stalked Garfield for almost a month, including in church, before he got the nerve and the window to shoot him. Look, I’m not going to come close to stitching that narrative together as well as the book. Again, I entreat you to read it. What I can do is make my case for why James Garfield could have been one of the best presidents, if he’d had the chance.
Born into extreme poverty in a log cabin in rural Ohio, Garfield believed education was his path to salvation. He hit the books so hard his first year of prep school that by his second year he was promoted from janitor to assistant professor. This is while he was still a student. A powerful and dynamic speaker, he taught six classes and they were so popular he was asked to teach two more. Upon graduating he was a professor of ancient languages, literature and mathematics at one point. By the time he was 26, they made him president of the college. Then he passed the bar studying by himself.
It’s probably no surprise that I’m high on James Garfield. The guy loved libraries! He added a library to his house, which was not enough to hold all his books. A visiting reporter noted, “You can go nowhere in the general’s home without coming face to face with books. They confront you in the hall when you enter, in the parlor and the sitting room, in the dining-room and even in the bath-room, where documents and speeches are corded up like firewood.” When he got to the House of Representatives Garfield became such good friends with the Librarian of Congress that he would get a call as soon as new shipments of books arrived from around the world and be afforded the first look.
Beyond smarts, Garfield had principles galore. As a young man, had harbored a runaway slave. He fought for equal rights for blacks while in Congress like universal suffrage, asking his fellow lawmakers if freedom was “the bare privilege of not being chained? If this is all, the freedom is a bitter mockery, a cruel delusion, and it may well be questioned whether slavery were not better. Let us not commit ourselves to the absurd and senseless dogma that the color of the skin shall be the basis of suffrage, the talisman of liberty.” An ardent abolitionist his entire life, he wrote in his diary as a boy that he felt “like throwing the whole current of my life into the work opposing this giant evil.”
And he could win elections! He was the youngest person ever elected to the Ohio legislature. He won his first Congressional seat by a 2-to-1 margin. He was chosen as a senator but never took the seat…because he was elected president. Not only did he never campaign for a single vote, he begged not to be considered for the Oval Office. When congratulated on his nomination he said, “I am very sorry that this has become necessary.” When he won the White House, “This honor comes to me unsought. I have never had the presidential fever; not even for a day.” He was like Maximus in Gladiator when Marcus Aurelius asked him to lead the Empire – With all my heart no. // That’s why it must be you!
Garfield almost surely would have survived his assassins bullet had the doctors attending him not continually probed his wound with their dirty hands and instruments. Given the path and position of the bullet, if they would have simply left him alone, over time he would have healed. Millard argues that if he had been shot in the same way today, he might only have spent a few days in the hospital. (Ed. note: For those of you wondering where the Secret Service was in all this, it existed, but not like you know it today. It had been created after Lincoln’s assassination, but was formed to fight counterfeiting, not to protect the president. Agents would not be assigned to POTUS until after McKinley was shot. Yes, it took three presidents being assassinated before they had a bodyguard.)
James Garfield was a scholar and a reformer who passionately believed in civil rights and was popular enough to potentially get re-elected, had he lived. He pushed hard to overhaul civil service away from the “spoils system” to a merit based process, despite severe opposition within his own party. It’s impossible to know what or how much Garfield would have gotten done, but the prospects seem bright. Oddly, his slaying united the country, bringing very disparate groups together to agree on their joint nationhood. They chose poorly for his VP (YES. AGAIN!!) but we’ll get to that in the next post.
I have to end on a personal note. After I read Destiny I found Candice Millard’s page on Facebook and sent her a message about how much I enjoyed the book. To my pleasant surprise, she wrote me back a note of thanks. Trying my luck, I explained the quest I was on and my hopes to publish articles about each one at some point and my larger goal of “becoming a writer.” She responded with some great encouragement and advice. It meant the world to me and played a part in (finally) getting this site off the ground. The Library has and will always have her books on the shelf.
Trivia
- Wrote an original proof of the Pythagorean theorem that was later published in a journal, while a member of Congress
- Robert Todd Lincoln was Garfield’s Secretary of War – macabre enough, he was present for his father’s, Garfield’s AND McKinley’s assassinations.
- This book says when Lucretia Garfield renovated their house over time she added a library to the second floor which became the first presidential library. WHICH ONE WAS FIRST!?! Someone save me from this madness.
- When a group of Germans visited his home before the presidential election he addressed them in German, the first speech by an American presidential nominee that was not in English.
- Johnny Cash wrote a song about him – Mr. Garfield
- Eldest son became president of his alma mater, next son would be TR’s Secretary of the Interior, other sons a lawyer and architect. Daughter Mollie married his private secretary.
- Argued a case before the Supreme Court in 1866 (Ex parte Milligan) which was his first ever courtroom argument!
- Assassination notes:
- Rumors spread that Senator Roscoe Conkling and VP Arthur were behind it, which was untrue.
- Fearing he would catch malaria from the nearby marshes (4 servants already had it in the White House just then) they dosed him with quinine, which likely ravaged his guts even more than help him.
- Ordered to do 8 days of butt chugging beef bullion and other liquids since he kept puking.
- Took 175 men to find 12 jurors that might give Guiteau a decently unbiased trial.
- 20,000 people requested invitations to Guiteau’s hanging (250 were invited)
Follow-up Reading
- Garfield: A Biography by Allan Peskin
- Dark Horse: the Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield by Kenneth Ackerman
- The Last Lincoln Republican by Benjamin T. Arrington
