Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard

Destiny of the Republic is a narrative history of the assassination of President James A. Garfield published in 2011 by Random House. Candice Millard is a former editor and writer for National Geographic and wrote a book called River of Doubt about Teddy Roosevelt on the Amazon, that Dad and I both enjoyed.



ALLISON:

A month ago, were you to ask me about Garfield, I would have unfortunately said, “Who? The cat?” I had a vague idea he was president, but not during which era, and I had even less inkling that he was assassinated.  Were you to tell me he was assassinated, I would think, “huh, why isn’t that more of a big deal?” Turns out it was a big deal, as traumatizing to the nation as the more notorious presidential murders, namely Lincoln and Kennedy.  I never learned a smidge about Garfield in high school, or college. I had no idea he was nominated for the office of presidency without running, in fact he even expressed sincere despair at the prospect. I had no idea he was inaugurated only four months before he was shot, surviving another three desperately infirmed, until succumbing to septicemia. Garfield is a most tragic figure. His story, heart wrenching. With little to no presidential aspirations, it was the presidency that inevitably killed him. The notoriety of such an important position drew the attention of a fame-seeking madman, who inexpertly shot Garfield, but it was the desperation to save the most important man in the country that inflicted his demise. A single doctor, practicing the very best and modern medicine he trusted at the time, turned a non-mortal wound into an agonizing and slow death sentence. Garfield survived numerous humble plagues of the Industrial Revolution: crippling poverty as a child, accidents of labor conditions, and the Civil War, which remains the most devastating war-time casualty seen by Americans. He survived, when many did not, only to be cut-down by his own significance. What I gleaned from reading Millard’s Destiny, is that Garfield, while surely not faultless, was potentially the greatest president I’d never even known.  

I implore you, read Millard’s book to get to know Garfield. He undeniably merits the attention and serves as an inspiration for what the most ambitious position could look like if worn by the humblest, and most deserving of men. There are plenty of other useful reminders. Most obvious is that the medical field is an inabsolute, in need of constant revision, ingenuity and skeptical inquiry. I felt a little bad for Dr. Bliss, the man who took over Garfield’s care after the shooting and usurped any attempts to second guess his opinion by other doctors, including Garfield’s own family doctors. Bliss also manipulated the public’s perception of Garfield’s affliction, by sending rosy updates that everything was steadily improving to the news outlets. Having just completed Pre-Healthcare requirements for Nursing School, and studying medical anthropology for my degree, I have done a fair amount of research into turn of the century medicine. In the late 1800s “germ theory” was just developing as an idea that disease is caused by unseen specks (microbes) that are spread and multiply within our bodies. Koch’s Postulates, a set of rules that link disease to specific bacteria, was not published until 1890, nine years after Garfield’s death. So, Dr. Bliss was working with what he, as an experienced ballistics physician who had plenty of practice working in military infirmaries during the Civil War, knew to be true. Regardless, after autopsy, Bliss was unanimously blamed for the death, so much so that even Garfield’s assassin, Guiteau felt confident claiming: “The doctors who mistreated him ought to bear the odium of his death, and not his assailant. They out to be indicted for murdering James A. Garfield, and not me” (276). There were no “doctors” caring for him, as Bliss had so pompously or fearfully denied all outside input. In the end, Bliss suffered not only professionally, but ultimately with his life, as he himself never recovered from the grueling labor of trying to save the president, and died less than a decade later.

Hindsight tells us (and some science that was very new at the time) that Bliss got it so horrendously wrong with Garfield, and it is excruciating to read about the torturous death suffered in Bliss’ care. All without anesthetic stronger than whiskey, and never a complaint did our hero make. It’s enough to take your breath away.

Despite his best efforts, Bliss was not the only man devoted to saving Garfield. Alexander Graham Bell takes a supporting role in this narrative, as he frantically tries to develop and perfect the first metal detector he intends to use to find the afflicting bullet buried in Garfield. Bell’s obsessive work ethic and his own fascinating history generated much suspense in this book, and made me want to find an equally amazing history of his life (should one, unlikely exist). Many other heroes and villains pepper the story with intrigue, as well as the detailing of political posturing and scientific discovery that was burgeoning in this era. It is entertaining to compare what has changed versus what has remained the same; to imagine a world in which just surviving was so brutal and messy and violent. One’s child making it through infancy was short of miraculous. The White House was a literal cesspit (can you imagine!), deemed unlivable due to disrepair. Anyone at all, could sit and chat with the president of the United States, as long as they arrived at his office before noon. It was a time when a man born into the most dire of straits could pay for college with janitorial work. Boy howdy, have times changed.  

I work at a bookstore. I recommend books to people on a daily basis. I love my job, but recommending a book is tricky business. When you ask me what you should spend your dollars on, what you should spend hours and hours of your time immersed in, I don’t take this task lightly. I want to give you something that will be completely satisfying, something that suits your tastes and won’t disappoint. That part's kinda easy. I know all the books, what they are about, how they were reviewed, who likes them, etc. But, sometimes I’ll get a special customer. By special, I mean vulnerable. And by vulnerable, I mean one who is open to a little risk, who when asking for a recommendation does so a little desperately, that I, the bookseller, will know exactly the book that they need. Over fifteen years of bookselling, I’ve compiled a list of quietly outstanding books that I offer to this customer, the one that trusts me. There is something very personal about passing on a book I truly love to a stranger. I get goosebumps, sometimes my voice cracks while I am describing it, and I often run off hoping not to notice if they do indeed buy it, because having just handed a little piece of my love to them, if it were rejected, I could not help but feel hurt.

Destiny of the Republic is now on that list. As this is my pick, I have already recommended this book to Dad, so I’m risking disappointment if he didn’t love it like I did, but I am entering this conversation blind of his commentary and there is still you, dear reader, to sell to. I hope you’ve bought into my pitch. Here’s a link to my bookstore. I will personally ship it to your door.

mcnallyjackson.com

I rate this book a 2 on Dad's scale of 1-10 (1 is best, although I am unsure of his parameters)

WES:

Destiny of the Republic, under its subtitle is a “Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of the President” but I see it as more than that. To me it seems more a tale of naivety or self-delusion surrounded by brutal reality. The characters are living in a strange world that they little understand, a world that seems to have moved beyond their grasp. As a result, their actions end up foiled by events totally alien to that they expected. They then failed to take necessary precautions toward the fate that barreled down unmercifully upon them. As such, the book is almost a tragic tale of misguided fate and as the common Irish saying of their day went, “The best laid plans of mice and men oft gang aglee.” 

President James A. Garfield, our 20^th President of the United States, is the central character in the book with his fate the most tragic and painful of all. An innocent in that he never sought any office, instead had greatness thrust upon him; first as preacher, college president, general in the Civil War, congressman, then the highest office in the land. Rising in the Republican Convention of 1880 to put Senator John Sherman’s name (Sherman was from Mansfield, Ohio) into nomination, he rhetorically asked the crowd who they wanted for President, expecting the crowd to answer “Sherman”, instead a single voice yelled out, “We want Garfield!” He waved that off but when the ballots reached the 34^th iteration and delegates could not decide between Grant, Blaine, Sherman, and various favorite sons, Garfield suddenly became a compromise candidate. So he embarked on a candidacy he didn’t really want and worked minimally for it but yet won and became President. Though he naively recognized the love of the masses and learning nothing from Lincoln’s murder only 15 years earlier, he moved about with no security protections with no thought for potential dangers and insanities lurking about. Only three months into office he was gunned down in a railroad station in the middle of the day in front of two of his young sons.

Charles Guiteau, the assassin, wrote the book on self-delusion. Moving from hotel to hotel without paying his bills while stiffing everyone for many years, he felt God’s favor on his every ambition while he repeatedly failed in every endeavor. Looking for and somehow thinking he deserved a political appointment as consul to Paris, he came every day and sent many letters to the White House and the State Department presenting his so-called credentials for a patronage appointment. He was the type of guy who continually was shunted to the side politely without realizing that people were ignoring him and he was going nowhere. Garfield called Guiteau’s first letter, “..an illustration of unparalleled audacity and impudence.” Garfield’s secretary probably never passed another one on to him. Finally, Guiteau believed after Garfield crossed Roscoe Conkling that the president was a rogue to the Stalwart faction so he decided he would do the nation a favor and kill him. Observing Garfield’s well known Christianity, he thought it a minor thing to send him on to heaven where life would be better. Meanwhile, Chester Arthur, the new President, would be happy to appoint Guiteau to his consulship and everyone would come out on top. To the last moment, Guiteau never thought he would die but that someone would come save him and he could marry, publish his book, and live out his life a hero. Ugly reality finally butted in on him with only a small favor granted by his being allowed to give his own signal for the executioner to trip the gallows’ lever.    

D. Willard Bliss, the doctor in charge of Garfield’s treatment, was called to assist by Robert Lincoln, Abe’s son, mainly because he was the doctor in charge when Lincoln was shot. Equally unsuccessful in saving the President this time, somehow this fellow successfully shunted all the other doctors off to the side, completely dominating every aspect of his treatment. Unfortunately, he botched it and probably caused his death by completely unsanitary and ceaseless probing of the wound looking for the bullet. If he had done nothing, Garfield probably would have survived as many Civil War soldiers lived for years with bullets in their bodies. He refused to employ Joseph Lister ‘s anti-septic methods while disregarding recent discoveries that unseen germs caused wound infection. He also kept insisting the bullet was on the left side, the same side as the entrance wound where it should have been obvious the bullet could be anywhere because Garfield’s paralysis meant his spinal cord must have been hit likely deflecting the bullet. His incompetence drastically affected the President’s fate while he continually remained optimistic, passing inaccurate and incomplete bulletins to the press and to the President’s wife and staff. He seemed completely clueless that Garfield was dying until the last crisis revealed that the President was suffering a hopeless condition where only 15 years later Garfield would have completely recovered.

Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, had met Garfield during the 1876 Centennial Exposition where he displayed his invention to the Congressman. Hearing of the assassination attempt and problems locating the bullet, he thought he could make a device using the electrical induction technique that might detect its exact location in the President’s body. He worked tirelessly to the detriment of his own family and came up with a workable prototype but when he finally convinced Bliss and the other key doctors to let him try it, his own doubts allowed him to succumb to their arbitrary limitations on using the device. He deluded himself that the doctors knew better than he on what his machine would do to the patient so he used his device on the left side of his back when the bullet turned out to be on the right side. It is incredible to me that he had to operate under such stupid restrictions but it was clear that the doctors did not know what they were doing and; hence, cruel reality burst in upon Bell’s attempt to apply science to the then dubious “art” of healing.   

Roscoe Conkling, a New York senator and boss of the Stalwarts, tried to control Garfield when he was first elected but the President refused to bow completely to his demands. The last straw came when the President appointed an enemy of Conkling’s to the biggest patronage post – collector of the Port of New York. Conkling decided to take a truly amazing course of action by resigning his seat in the Senate, confident that the state assembly would reappoint him.  He was totally self-deluded in his plan as the state assembly, secretly jealous and squirming under his self-centered power wielding, refused to reappoint him. Conkling was left without his power base and soon lost all his influence and suffered an early death. Not seeing the complete picture of where he really stood amongst his fellow power brokers, he did not miss when shooting himself in the foot.    

This book was a good read and covers a period of history little known today. Garfield was an extremely fascinating character whose Presidency might have been one of the greatest. Asking many today, they probably never heard of him as he was cut down so early without a substantial legacy. I thoroughly enjoyed visiting his farm in Mentor, Ohio, near Cleveland. His house and library are fascinating and it is a very pleasant place to visit. As noted in the book, all prayers for his recovery over the long 79 days he suffered were to no avail. It is disheartening that God did not move to heal him but let him suffer so through to the end. I guess that is the moral of the tale – God can give people the knowledge and skills to help people but if other men don’t allow the scientific progress known to man to work, then tragedy will ensue. Overall, I rate this book as a 4 on my scale of 1-10 (1 as best).