Requiem for a National Tragedy

RUNNING HEAD: requiem

Requiem for a National Tragedy:

A Historiography of President James Garfield’s Assassination

James J. Ranew

HIS-603 Gilded Age & Progressive Era

March 29th, 2015

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Requiem for a national tragedy

Introduction –

Paradigm shifts are the fundamental changes have defined a society solely or as mix of

underlying political, economic, and cultural assumptions, though often remembered in

detail in history some have fallen into obscurity among the general public and scholarly

historiographies. President Garfield’s assassination and the trail of his assassin, is one of

these historiographies, though its general narrative has very much remained absent of any

major revelations, there has been revisiting on various points mostly from the legal and

medical perspectives. These various perspectives are an important pieces of the

historiography, but is what it teaches about the condition of America at the time, and the

human condition overall. For this paper the historiography will be teaching us about the

frail mortality we all share, and the cost of personal hubris.

The aim of this paper is grounded in clearing obscurity that has fallen over a tragedy, and

paradigm shift of the American experience. To that aim the thesis of this paper will be

focused as follows: America has experienced four presidential assassinations. The second

assassination, of James A. Garfield, is the most obscure and behind this obscurity is a rich

historiography that presents itself telling us not just the story of a President and his

assassin, but of how antiquated ideas in medicine, the law, psychiatry, and administrative

appointment were in need of serious change. This paper will be concise to this thesis and

will largely focus on character of Garfield, the failure to save his life, and how the

potential of his lost presidency permanently changed U.S. governance. Of secondary, but

still central importance, is the story and trial of assassin, Charles Guiteau, a man who by

any measure could be considered mentally unstable, yet, like nearly all other Presidential

assassins, was truly a product of his time and its social conditions.

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The Legacy of an Unlikely President –

It is the way he became wrapped in that “presidential fever”, he so wished to avoid, that

raises fascination about him, and given his humble origins, the possibilities of reforms to

the corruption that had overtaken Washington. This is the unchanging narrative on James

Garfield; he understood what crippling poverty really was, a self-made man who’d come

to power when the nation needed it most. The sources used for Garfield are mostly

recent, but cover its historiography so well, they do it just to be used as the main

comparison: there is Ackerman’s earlier work (2003) and Milliard recent work (2011),

there is also some archival use, works on his administration (DeSantis) and the recent

medical research (2006). Though historical works on Garfield can be sparse, there is

wealth archival information relating to the 1880 convention, his election, and

assassination, little of this is used directly here, as the works of Ackerman and Millard

make such wonderful use of it in their narratives. Ackerman and Millard will be

contrasted to create a consistent historiographical narrative for Garfield and his final

days, more than any other works, though other source will add to the richness of the

historiography.

The Republican Party had been divided into two warring factions the Stalwarts,

supporting establishment line of the patronage system and firmly supported Grant, and

the Half-Breeds, young ideologies supporting a meritocracy spilt between Blaine and

Sherman. The day after the convention’s end, June 9th, 1880, the New York Tribune ran

the headline: “Garfield for President; Arthur for Vice President”, Grant’s failure to

obtain nomination is heralded a “crushing defeat of the third-term idea in American

Politics”, Garfield also makes plain his wish to not be considered without his consent but

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was ignored.1 It was the stunning last minuet shift in roll call votes that gave Garfield

reason to panic, he had been given some token support, but felt them just that and was

sure the nomination would fall to one of the three top contenders.2 Ackerman does us the

work of recording the actual numbers of the final ballots, on the 34th ballot Garfield’s

name doesn’t even appear but by the 35th he is not only on it but also a contender, and by

the 36th he is the nominee.3 The unwanted surprise was something Garfield tried to

remove himself from, but his dedication to decorum and public service would not allow

it. Before he took the podium to accept the nomination, still sitting among his Ohio

delegation, transfixed at the floor, head nearly in his hands as people congratulated him,

he turned to his Congressional colleague, William Frye, saying: “I am very sorry that this

has become necessary”.4

Though the nominating process that brought Garfield to the Presidency is relatively

minor in the larger picture of his assassination, it’s important to understand the character

of Garfield, and to better grasp the short historiography of his unlikely presidency. Given

the mental state of Guiteau we can wonder should Sherman, Blaine, or Grant have won

nomination and election, could Garfield’s fate have been there’s, perhaps even the

Democrat, Gen. Winfield Hancock, could have met with such a grizzly end had he won.5

The history and subsequent historiography is they didn’t win, Garfield did, and his entire

humble, industrious background that gave a fairly populous image, seem to strike the

1 “New York Tribune (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924 June 09, 1880, Image 1”, Library of Congress: Washington D.C., Accessed March 27th, 2015, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1880-06-09/ed-1/seq-1/ocr/. 2 Candice Millard, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine , and the Murder of a President, (New York: Anchor Books, 2011), 47-50. 3 Kenneth D. Ackerman, Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield, (Falls Church: Viral History Press, 2003), 99-103.4 Candice Millard, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine , and the Murder of a President, (New York: Anchor Books, 2011), 52. 5 “The Election of President James Garfield of Ohio”, United States House of Representatives, Accessed April 11th, 2015, http://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1851-1900/The-election-of-President-James-Garfield-of-Ohio/.

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most polarized opposite against the erratic, violent demeanor of Guiteau. To that end his

near improbable nomination and election, make for a Greek tragedy in American history,

which without, would leave this historiography grossly lacking.

The issue of the ‘Solid South’ is important to Garfield’s presidency, as it has much to tell

us of what his continued presidency would have looked like; DeSantis writes the

amazing, seminal work on this important policy shift.6 Garfield would abandon the

practice of conciliating Southern Whites under Hayes, but neither would he allow

Stalwarts to dictate policy to him and demand a return to the ‘Radical Republican’

policies of Reconstruction.7 Garfield would pursue a policy focused on the education of

White, Southern youth and developing the region economically.8 The South would only

come out of its long post-war slump when new generations laid down the prejudices of

their fathers, embracing Republicanism, and allowed the values of free markets to

reenergize their faltering, war torn agrarian economy.9

On the day he was shot, July 2nd, 1881, President Garfield was in a place of political

triumph, having put the ambitions of Conkling aside for the time, he prepared with two of

his sons, Harry and Jim, to travel North to New England for the Summer, he was

accompanied by Secretary of State James G. Blaine through the carriage ride, and the

walk to his train.10 The final interactions of the President were well documented, although

both were very brief and one was a stunned remark to his assassin. While still waiting in

his carriage with Blaine, he asked Metropolitan Police officer Patrick Kearney, “How

6 Vincent P. DeSantis, “President Garfield and the Solid South”, North Carolina Historical Review 36, No. 4 (1959), 442-443. 7 Ibid., 448-449. 8 Ibid., 448-449. 9 Ibid., 449-451. 10 Candice Millard, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine , and the Murder of a President, (New York: Anchor Books, 2011), 141; 150-152.

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much time have we, Officer”, to which Kearny walked up to the President’s window and

flashed he watch, saying: “About ten minuets, Sir”.1112 His other words were after

Guiteau’s first shot struck his right arm, turning to look his assassin in the eyes Garfield

exclaims: “My God! What is this”, but might have only gotten a cursory glance, as

Guiteau quickly struck again, this time shooting him in the back and fearfully running for

his own life amid a torrent of horrified screams and calls to ‘catch him’.1314

As the President lay on the lobby floor of the Baltimore-Potomac Station, a pool of blood

forming underneath him, the record again is clear as to what happened in the moments in

which it’s thought he might soon die. His son Harry fought of a swarming crowd,

begging them to give his father room, as his younger brother Jim, kneeling at his father’s

side, implored the same through his sobs.1516 Standing near the President’s grieving

children was another cabinet member, Robert Todd Lincoln, who himself could not help

but reflect on the devastation he felt sixteen years earlier when his own Presidential father

was slain.17 The presence of Garfield’s teenage sons makes the national tragedy of his

assassination a deeply personal one, but Robert Lincoln’s presence adds the cruelest of

historical ironies, for the nation still healing from wounds of 1865 and Reconstruction. In

the coming weeks the tragedy that appeared to have been averted, as Garfield began to

mend, would be made real by the hubris of his physicians. The nation, however, found

11 Ibid., 151-152. 12 Kenneth D. Ackerman, Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield, (Falls Church: Viral History Press, 2003), 333. 13 Ibid., 334-335.14 Candice Millard, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine , and the Murder of a President, (New York: Anchor Books, 2011), 153. 15 Ibid., 160. 16 Kenneth D. Ackerman, Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield, (Falls Church: Viral History Press, 2003), 335-336. 17 Ibid., 335-336.

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itself bonded in a way many had not known in their lifetime; even the oldest of

international tensions would be healed by a President’s death.

The President was laid on a dirty mattress, on the second floor and inspected by D.C.

health officer Dr. Smith Townsend, an hour after his arrival the President asked to be

taken to the White House; Townsend would be the first of nine doctors to inspected the

Presidential wounds.1819 Upon arrival at the White House, General William Sherman,

Commander of the Army, formed a garrison around the mansion, an entire wing of the

White House was made into a miniature hospital, and he was taken to a bedroom on this

wing.2021 The President would be isolated to the bed he was laid on, behind a sheet that

was strung up for privacy, for the next eighty days, during this time multiple doctors

inspected the wound in his back, searching for the bullet and not finding it.22 What would

follow is something that historians and physicians for decades after would be perplexed

by, that doctors could have well saved the Presidents life, but went on to use antiquated

practices, refusing modern sterilizing methods, and ultimately committing an act of gross

negligence that killed James Garfield.

It was precisely the method of examining the wound that caused an infection to set in and

kill the President, often doctors used nothing more than their bare, unsanitized hands to

probe at it, tools were not routinely cleaned or even sanitized before use either.2324 The

18 Ibid., 160. 19 Kenneth D. Ackerman, Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield, (Falls Church: Viral History Press, 2003), 335-336. 20 Ibid., 171-173.21 Kenneth D. Ackerman, Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield, (Falls Church: Viral History Press, 2003), 171-173. 22 Candice Millard, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine , and the Murder of a President, (New York: Anchor Books, 2011), 179. 23 Kenneth D. Ackerman, Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield, (Falls Church: Viral History Press, 2003), 368-372.24 Candice Millard, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine , and the Murder of a President, (New York: Anchor Books, 2011), 161.

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layman might assume that such practices as sterilizing or the scientific understanding of

germs (germ theory) was not available in 1881, but they very much were. In 1865 British

physician Joseph Lister had demonstrated the process of antisepsis, preventing infection

by destroying germs, and in 1876 he demonstrated this process to group of the most

renown physicians in America, they were, for the most part, not impressed.25 The chief

physician, Dr. D. Willard Bliss, who was at the bedside of Abraham Lincoln, held a

certain amount of sway and despised Lister’s theories, the results of autopsy and the long

lens of history reveal he was largely misdiagnosing Garfield’s injury.2627 Believing the

bullet to be in the pelvis, doctors made incisions designed to help remove the bullet, but

created an infection that started to pus over by mid August, the bullet had lodged in the

lower abdomen and if left alone, soft tissue would have formed around it and Garfield

healed; issues of accidental starvation through over and at times unnecessary medication,

help to assure the President’s death. 28

On September 5th, 1881 Garfield was exhausted and ready to let go, Bliss attempted to

assure him a recovery was near, but Garfield interjected saying “No, no… I don’t want

any more delay”; the President, barley alive, was carried from his bed, to a carriage,

taken to the train station, and bound for a home in New Jersey.2930 On the evening of

September 19th, the First Lady and his longtime friend Gen. Swain by his side, Garfield’s

fever overtook him, he began wheezing uncontrollably, then went silent; President

25 Ibid., 15-16. 26 Ibid., 163-166. 27 Kenneth D. Ackerman, Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield, (Falls Church: Viral History Press, 2003), 353. 28George Paulson, “Death of a President and His Assassin-Errors in their Diagnosis and Autopsies”, Journal of the History of Neurosciences 15, No.2 (2006), 82. 29. Kenneth D. Ackerman, Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield, (Falls Church: Viral History Press, 2003), 375.30 Candice Millard, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine , and the Murder of a President, (New York: Anchor Books, 2011), 259-260.

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Garfield had slipped into unconsciousness.31 Bliss rushed into the room, doing everything

he could to wake the President, but to no avail, at 10:35 P.M. Bliss simply exclaimed, “It

is over”.3233 All through the early morning hours newsboys filled the streets of American

cities with cries of ‘Extra, President Garfield Dead’, with that pronouncement the nation

would begin a healing it had been denied since Appomattox and seek a vengeance on the

man who took their President.34

The historical phenomenon that occurred in the wake of Garfield’s death is one of those

shifts in the accepted historical narrative that changes the course of nations, and at times

the world.35 This spirit of good will translated to the oldest of America’s international

tensions, that with England. The growing ties of technology made the Atlantic world one

of friendlier relations, the sympathy brought by the English diplomats and population was

received with similar sympathies by their American counterparts, it was the beginning of

a thaw in diplomatic relations that would become the most important of allegiances in the

20th century.36 A profound change in American governance came from this out pouring of

grief; the work of Garfield and the Half-Breeds to institute a system of merit in choosing

civil officers would prove fruitful when Congress passed the Pendleton Act in 1883.37

The Madness & Trial of Charles Guiteau –

31 Ibid., 260. 32 Ibid., 264-265. 33 Kenneth D. Ackerman, Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield, (Falls Church: Viral History Press, 2003), 377. 34 Candice Millard, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine , and the Murder of a President, (New York: Anchor Books, 2011), 265. 35 Ibid., 288. 36 Mike Sewell, “’All the English Speaking Race is Mourning’: The Assassination of President Garfield and Anglo-American Relations”, The Historical Journal 34, No. 3 (1991), 668-670. 37 “Pendleton Act (1883)”, OurDocuments.gov, Accessed March 28th, 2015, http://www.ourdocuments.gov/print_friendly.php?flash=true&page=&doc=48&title=Pendleton+Act+%281883%29.

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On the morning of July 2nd, 1881 Charles Guiteau woke early in his hotel room at Riggs

House, historians agree that he had been in a restless state for days planning the

assassination he would call “a political necessity”.38 In these dawning hours Guiteau set

down an infamous letter he would hand to Metropolitan Police officers upon his arrest, he

introduces himself as a “lawyer, theologian, and politician”, the letter is addressed to

General Sherman, instructing him to surround the jail and have his men set him free. 3940

The detached notion that General Sherman would come to his aid after attempting to

murder the President, has always been certifiable proof of Guiteau’s mental illness. It is

his illness that struck controversy and fears he might get away with murder in his time,

and strikes historical, legal, and psychiatric interest as to what his trial tells us about that

progress in understanding and treating mental illness.

The early sources come from as far back as the early 20th century (Jackson), with other

sources coming from near mid-century (Mitchell), the most famous current work written

in 1969 (Rosenberg), with another overview of his trial coming in ’77 (Peskin); the work

of Milliard will be of importance as well. It is remarkable and a little grotesque that

Guiteau insanity and his trial have drawn almost a steadier stream of historical writings,

then Garfield’s Presidency and eighty days of suffering. Guiteau’s trial began on

November 17th, 1881, some two months removed from Garfield’s death, it would be a

fairly brief proceeding lasting less than four months, concluding on February 4th, 1882.41

What took place was not so much an exercise in administrating justice, as it was a formal

38 Candice Millard, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine , and the Murder of a President, (New York: Anchor Books, 2011), 147-149.39 Ibid., 148-149. 40 Kenneth D. Ackerman, Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield, (Falls Church: Viral History Press, 2003), 331-334. 41 E. Hilton Jackson, “The Trial of Guiteau”, The Virginia Law Register 9, No. 12 (1904), 1025.

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proceeding to assure vengeance for a grieving nation. Historians and legal scholars tend

to be an agreement that no one at the time was interested in understanding any true

motive Guiteau might have had, or how mental illness played a large role in Guiteau’s

delusions.4243 Rather at the time and for over half century after, he was “a disappointed

office seeker”, who sought petty revenge on the President for refusal to give him

recommendation to be appointed Consul of Paris.44 His ambition to this diplomatic

position was but the latest in long history of grandiose delusions, during the election of

1880 he had written a speech which he firmly believed won Garfield the White House.4546

Prior to his political aspirations, Guiteau believed himself a great preacher and

theologian, to the point that in 1860 he joined a separatist group called ‘The Community’

that preached Christ had returned in 70 AD and passed judgment on the Jews, and now

only the Gentiles who followed Christ would inherit his kingdom at the end of the

world.4748 He would even take up the occupation of being a traveling preacher; mostly

regurgitating the theology he had learned in his religious commune.49 Of all Guiteau’s

delusions, his claim to be a lawyer was the one based in a minutia of reality, as he was

indeed a barred attorney in his home state of Illinois.50 Yet his appointment to the Illinois

42Stewart Mitchell, “The Man Who Murdered Garfield”, Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 67, (1941-1944), 452. 43 Charles Rosenberg, introduction to The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 1968), xiii-xv. 44 Stewart Mitchell, “The Man Who Murdered Garfield”, Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 67, (1941-1944), 466. 45 Ibid., 465-466. 46 Candice Millard, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine , and the Murder of a President, (New York: Anchor Books, 2011), 64-65. 47 Ibid., 56-58. 48 Stewart Mitchell, “The Man Who Murdered Garfield”, Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 67, (1941-1944), 459-462. 49 Ibid., 461-463. 50 Candice Millard, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine , and the Murder of a President, (New York: Anchor Books, 2011), 58.

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Bar has always been under some suspicion and curiosity, a general historical consensus

that Christopher Reed, who gave Guiteau his exam, was “a good hearted fellow” though

not all that discerning, allowed Guiteau a lawyers license from a mix a pity and good

intentions. The pity given to Guiteau would be for naught as much with his on again-off

again failure’s as a preacher, until his excommunication for adultery, he open a series of

failed law practices, where by the 1880 election he was wondering vagrant, who still

believed himself a destined for greatness and national acclaim.51

There was a wish to at least appear that Guiteau was given a fair trial, but his random,

psychotic outbursts and the allowance of the jury to have opinionated knowledge on his

guilt or innocence, just not fixed opinions, would make this difficult.52 Three defenses

would be presented, the first of malpractices by the doctors killing Garfield was abandon

when the lead prosecutor left the case, the second that D.C. lacked jurisdiction as

Garfield died in New Jersey, but was roundly rejected, finally a defense of insanity was

settled on.53 A coincidence in the months before Garfield’s assassination, a Charles J.

Guiteau, meeting the same description of being a ‘theologian’ and so forth, was deemed

to be ‘insane’ by a medical board.54 Though jurors understood Guiteau’s insanity, to an

extent, Glided Age America didn’t really grasp what it meant to be mentally ill. For these

reasons, among others, Guiteau was sentenced to death, and hung on June 30th, 1882.55

Future Research –

51 Ibid., 58-61. 52 Charles Rosenberg, The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 1968), 113-130. 53 E. Hilton Jackson, “The Trial of Guiteau”, The Virginia Law Register 9, No. 12 (1904), 1027. 54 Ibid., 1028. 55 Charles Rosenberg, The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 1968), 235-237.

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The key interests in Garfield’s assassination and Guiteau’s subsequent trial, have come

from the medical and legal communities. It is because of Garfield’s place as the second

President to suffer assassination, and that it came during such turbulent period of political

and socio-economic readjustment for America, that his place in history has been rather

firm, even though it was so brief. The brevity of his administration, added to the general

obscurity the surrounds the Glided Age Presidents, explains the lack of consistent, major

historical research into the larger event of his assassination and the small picture of what

a four year Garfield administration would look like. In recent years, probably due to an

over saturation of historiography on giants like: Lincoln, Grant, and Roosevelt, there is a

growing interest the Presidents who have so long been ignored. Garfield, with his humble

beginnings and genuine love of public service, has become a bellwether among research

of these forgotten Presidents.

Milliard’s “Destiny of the Republic” and Ackerman’s “Dark Horse” are among the

newest research into the life of Garfield, his assassin Guiteau, and the saga they were at

the center of. They both back use of the vast archival sources and bring new relevance to

older research. Recent medical research finds itself revaluating the ultimate cause of

Garfield’s death, The American Journal of Surgery published just such an article in 2013:

“Did James A. Garfield die of cholecystitis? Revisiting the autopsy of the 20th president

of the United States”.56 This resurgence, while not to the level of other issues of the

Gilded Age, has a promising future, and on that offers the chance to challenge current

historical norms.

Bibliography

56 Joharifard, Shahrzad & Pappas, Theodore N. “Did James A. Garfield Die of Cholecystitis? Revisiting the Autopsy of the 20th President of the United States”. American Journal of Surgery 206, No.4 (2013).

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Ackerman, Kenneth D. Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of

President James A. Garfield, (Falls Church: Viral History Press, 2003).

Vincent P. DeSantis, “President Garfield and the Solid South”, North Carolina Historical

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Jackson, E. Hilton. “The Trial of Guiteau”, The Virginia Law Register 9, No. 12 (1904).

Joharifard, Shahrzad & Pappas, Theodore N. “Did James A. Garfield Die of

Cholecystitis? Revisiting the Autopsy of the 20th President of the United States”.

American Journal of Surgery 206, No.4 (2013).

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Autopsies”, Journal of the History of Neurosciences 15, No.2 (2006).

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