Also by Candice Millard The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey Copyright © 2011 by Candice Millard All rights reserved Published in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto www.doubleday.com DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc This page–this page constitute an extension of this copyright page Jacket design by John Fontana Jacket photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Millard, Candice Destiny of the republic : a tale of madness, medicine, and the murder of a president / Candice Millard.—1st ed p cm Garfield, James A (James Abram), 1831–1881—Assassination Presidents—United States—Biography Guiteau, Charles Julius, 1841–1882 Presidents—Medical care—United States—History— 19th century Medicine—United States—History—19th century Bell, Alexander Graham, 1847–1922 Medical instruments and apparatus—United States—History—19th century United States—Politics and government—1881– 1885 Political culture—United States—History—19th century 10 Power (Social sciences)—United States—History— 19th century I Title E687.9.M55 2011 973.8′4092—dc22 2011001549 eISBN: 978-0-385-53500-7 v3.1 For my parents, Lawrence and Constance Millard, on their fiftieth wedding anniversary CONTENTS Cover Other Books by This Author Title Page Copyright Dedication Prologue Chosen PART ONE PROMISE Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter The Scientific Spirit Providence “A Beam in Darkness” God’s Minute Man Bleak Mountain PART TWO WAR Chapter Hand and Soul Chapter Real Brutuses and Bolingbrokes Chapter Brains, Flesh, and Blood Chapter Casus Belli Chapter 10 The Dark Dreams of Presidents Chapter 11 “A Desperate Deed” PART THREE FEAR Chapter 12 “Thank God It Is All Over” Chapter 13 “It’s True” Chapter 14 All Evil Consequences Chapter 15 Blood-Guilty PART FOUR TORTURED FOR THE REPUBLIC Chapter 16 Neither Death nor Life Chapter 17 One Nation Chapter 18 “Keep Heart” Chapter 19 On a Mountaintop, Alone Chapter 20 Terror, Hope, and Despair Chapter 21 After All Chapter 22 All the Angels of the Universe Epilogue Forever and Forever More Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Illustration Credits Illustrations • PROLOGUE • CHOSEN C rossing the Long Island Sound in dense fog just before midnight on the night of June 11, 1880, the passengers and crew of the steamship Stonington found themselves wrapped in impenetrable blackness They could feel the swell of the sea below them, and they could hear the low-slung ship plowing through the water, its enormous wooden paddle wheels churning, its engine drumming At steady intervals, the blast of the foghorn reverberated through the darkness, but no ship returned its call They seemed to be utterly alone Although most of the passengers had long since retired to private cabins or the bright warmth of the saloon, one man stood quietly on the deck, peering into the fog that obscured everything beyond his own pale hands At ve feet seven inches tall, with narrow shoulders, a small, sharp face, and a threadbare jacket, Charles Guiteau was an unremarkable gure He had failed at everything he had tried, and he had tried nearly everything, from law to ministry to even a free-love commune He had been thrown in jail His wife had left him His father believed him insane, and his family had tried to have him institutionalized In his own mind, however, Guiteau was a man of great distinction and promise, and he predicted a glorious future for himself Just three days earlier, immediately following the Republican Party’s tumultuous presidential convention in faraway Chicago, Guiteau had decided to pack his few belongings and leave Boston, his sights set on the party’s campaign headquarters in New York In a surprise nomination, James Gar eld, an eloquent congressman from Ohio, had been chosen over a eld of powerful contenders, including even former president Ulysses S Grant Like Guiteau, Gar eld had started out with very little in life, but where Guiteau had found failure and frustration, Gar eld had found unparalleled success The excitement surrounding the unexpected, charismatic candidate was palpable, and Guiteau was determined to be a part of it Absorbed in his own thoughts, and blinded by the thick fog that blanketed the sound, Guiteau did not even see the other ship until it was too late One moment there was the soft, rhythmic splashing of the paddle wheels In the next instant, before Guiteau’s eyes, a 253-foot steamship abruptly materialized from the darkness and collided with Guiteau’s ship head-on in a tremendous, soul-wrenching crash of iron and steel As the Stonington recoiled from the blow and tried to pull astern, it compounded the disaster by tearing away the starboard wheelhouse and wheel of the oncoming ship—its sister steamer, the Narragansett, which had been headed at full speed in the opposite direction On board the Narragansett, passengers were suddenly plunged into darkness, confusion, and terror As the ship listed steeply, the lights went out and rushing water and scalding steam poured over the decks Several staterooms were swept away entirely, and one man, who had been asleep in an upper bunk, was thrown out of a gaping hole and into the sound Just as the shocked passengers, who had rushed from their rooms in nightgowns and bare feet, began to comprehend what had happened, another thunderous blast shook the Narragansett as its boiler, which had been struck by the Stonington, exploded Flames licked the well-oiled decks, sending a deadly restorm billowing through the ship As the passengers of the Stonington watched in horror, the men and women of the Narragansett, frantic to escape the re, began to throw themselves and their children over the sides of the blazing ship into the depths of the sound One terri ed young man raised his gun and shot himself as the boat began to sink In just minutes, the re grew in intensity until it covered the length of the ship, from stem to stern, and illuminated the sound for miles As the tragedy unfolded before him, Guiteau could hear the screams and desperate cries for help, which continued, disembodied, even after the ship burned to the waterline and then sank, plunging the shell-shocked witnesses, once again, into complete darkness The frightened and ill-prepared crew of the Stonington lowered lifeboats into the water and circled blindly for hours, searching for survivors by their cries and pulling them to safety by arms, legs, clothing, even the hair of their heads Many, however, had already drowned, or had drifted beyond help, their cries fading as they were carried away by the tide When the Stonington nally staggered into its home port in Connecticut early on the morning of June 12, the town’s stunned inhabitants were met with a scene of destruction that, in the words of one reporter, “beggar[ed] description.” The ship’s bow had been smashed in, the timber and planking ripped away nearly to the waterline Three passengers of the Narragansett who had been rescued from the sound had already died on board Twenty-seven more had burned to death or drowned Those who had survived collapsed on the pier, hysterical, nearly naked, their skin left in shreds by the re Parents searched frantically for children as crew members solemnly wrapped two bodies, that of a man and a child, in sailcloth and laid them upon rocks near the shore Two weeks later another body would wash up on Fishers Island As dawn revealed the scale of the carnage, the survivors, even in the midst of their shock and despair, considered themselves extraordinarily fortunate to be alive Guiteau, however, believed that luck had nothing to with his survival As he stepped o a steamship that had come to the Stonington’s rescue, Guiteau felt certain that he had not been spared, but rather selected—chosen by God for a task of tremendous importance Disappearing into the crowd, he dedicated himself to what he now saw clearly as the divine mission before him PART ONE PROMISE At just twenty-three years of age, Joseph Stanley Brown was the youngest man ever to hold the office of private secretary to the president Brown’s most difficult job was keeping at bay the hoards of office seekers who demanded to see the president “These people,” Garfield told his young secretary, “would take my very brains, flesh and blood if they could.” (Illustration credit 1.11) Although thousands of office seekers flooded Brown’s office, one man stood out as an “illustration of unparalleled audacity.” Charles Guiteau visited the White House and the State Department nearly every day, inquiring about the consulship to France he believed the president owed him Finally, after months of polite but firm discouragement, Guiteau received what he felt was a divine inspiration: God wanted him to kill the president (Illustration credit 1.12) In mid-June, Guiteau, who had survived for years by slipping out just before his rent was due, borrowed fifteen dollars and bought a gun—a 44 caliber British Bulldog with an ivory handle Having never before fired a gun, he took it to the Potomac River and practiced shooting at a sapling “I knew nothing about it,” he said, “no more than a child.” (Illustration credit 1.13) On the morning of July 2, Garfield and his secretary of state, James Blaine, arrived at the Baltimore and Potomac train station (below), where Guiteau, who had been stalking the president for more than a month, was waiting for him The assassin’s gun was loaded, his shoes were polished, and in his suit pocket was a letter to General William Tecumseh Sherman “I have just shot the President …,” it read “Please order out your troops, and take possession of the jail at once.” (Illustration credit 1.14) (Illustration credit 1.15) Just moments after Garfield and Blaine entered the waiting room, Guiteau pulled the trigger The first shot passed through the president’s right arm, but the second sent a bullet ripping through his back Garfield’s knees buckled, and he fell to the train station floor, bleeding and vomiting, as the station erupted in screams (Illustration credit 1.16) While Guiteau was quickly captured and taken into custody, Garfield was carried on a horsehair mattress to an upstairs room in the train station Surrounded by ten different doctors, each of whom wanted to examine the president, Garfield lay, silent and unflinching, as the men repeatedly inserted unsterilized fingers and instruments into the wound, searching for the bullet (Illustration credit 1.17) Sixteen years before Garfield’s shooting, Joseph Lister had achieved dramatic results using carbolic acid to sterilize his operating room, and his method had been adopted in much of Europe In the United States, however, the most experienced physicians still refused to use Lister’s technique, complaining that it was too time-consuming, and dismissing it as unnecessary, even ridiculous (Illustration credit 1.18) Although a crowd of nervous doctors hovered over Garfield at the train station, Robert Todd Lincoln, Garfield’s secretary of war and Abraham Lincoln’s only surviving son, quickly took charge, sending his carriage for Dr D Willard Bliss, one of the surgeons who had been at his father’s deathbed Bliss, a strict traditionalist, was confident that the president could not hope to find a better physician “If I can’t save him,” he told a reporter, “no one can.” (Illustration credit 2.1) Soon after Garfield was brought to the White House, Bliss dismissed the other doctors, keeping only a handful of physicians and surgeons who reported directly to him Dr Susan Edson, one of the first female doctors in the country and Lucretia’s personal physician, insisted on staying, even though Bliss refused to let her provide anything but the most basic nursing services to the president (Illustration credit 2.2) (Illustration credit 2.3) Guiteau’s bullet (first photo above), which entered Garfield’s back four inches to the right of his spinal column, broke two of his ribs and grazed an artery Miraculously, it did not hit any vital organs or his spinal cord as it continued its trajectory to the left, finally coming to rest behind his pancreas The bullet had done all the harm it was going to do, but Bliss had only begun (Illustration credit 2.4) After returning Garfield to the White House, which although crumbling and rat infested was preferable to the overcrowded hospitals, Bliss continued to search for the bullet Garfield had survived the shooting, but he now faced an even more serious threat to his life: the infection that his doctors repeatedly introduced as they probed the wound in his back (Illustration credit 2.5) Although he allowed almost no one to visit the president, Bliss regularly issued medical bulletins, which were posted at telegraph offices and on wooden billboards outside newspaper buildings “Everywhere people go about with lengthened faces,” one reporter wrote, “anxiously inquiring as to the latest reported condition of the president.” (Illustration credit 2.6) As soon as he learned of the shooting, Alexander Graham Bell (left), who had a laboratory in Washington, D.C., began to think of ways the bullet might be found Sickened by the thought of Garfield’s doctors blindly “search[ing] with knife and probe,” he reasoned that “science should be able to discover some less barbarous method.” Bell quickly decided that what he needed was a metal detector Four years earlier, he had invented a device to get rid of the static in telephone lines, and he now recalled that, when a piece of metal came near the invention, it caused the sound to return Bell was confident that the invention, which he called an induction balance (right), could be modified to “announce the presence of the bullet.” (Illustration credit 2.7 and Illustration credit 2.8) Bell (at right, with his ear to the telephone receiver) twice attempted to find the bullet in Garfield using the induction balance Bliss, however (leaning over Garfield with the induction balance), allowed Bell to search only the president’s right side, where Bliss believed, and had publicly stated, the bullet was lodged (Illustration credit 2.9) After spending two months in his sickroom in the White House, Garfield finally insisted that he be moved A wealthy New Yorker offered his summer home in Elberon, New Jersey, and a train was carefully renovated for the wounded president Wire gauze was wrapped around the outside to protect him from smoke, and the seats inside were removed, thick carpeting laid on the floors, and a false ceiling inserted to help cool the car (Illustration credit 2.10) When the train reached Elberon, it switched to a track that would take it directly to the door of Franklyn Cottage Two thousand people had worked until dawn to lay the track, but the engine was not strong enough to breach the hill on which the house sat “Instantly hundreds of strong arms caught the cars,” Bliss wrote, “and silently … rolled the three heavy coaches” up the hill (Illustration credit 2.11) At ten o’clock on the night of September 19, Garfield suddenly cried out in pain Bliss rushed to the room, but the president was already dying As Garfield slipped away, “a faint, fluttering pulsation of the heart, gradually fading to indistinctness,” he was surrounded by his wife and daughter, and his young secretary, Joseph Stanley Brown—“the witnesses,” Bliss would later write, “of the last sad scene in this sorrowful history.” (Illustration credit 2.12) Garfield’s body was returned to Washington on the same train that had brought him to Elberon just two weeks earlier Thousands of people lined the tracks as the train, now swathed in black, passed by The White House was also draped in mourning, as were the buildings through which a procession of some one hundred thousand mourners wound, waiting to see the president’s body as it lay in state in the Capitol rotunda (Illustration credit 2.13) (Illustration credit 2.14) When news of Garfield’s death reached New York, reporters rushed to Arthur’s house, but his doorkeeper refused to disturb him The vice president was “sitting alone in his room,” he said, “sobbing like a child.” A few hours later, at 2:15 a.m., Arthur was quietly sworn into office by a state judge in his own parlor (Illustration credit 2.15) After a trial that lasted more than two months, Guiteau was found guilty and sentenced to death Twenty thousand people requested tickets to the execution Two hundred and fifty invitations were issued Guiteau was hanged on June 30, 1882, two days before the anniversary of Garfield’s shooting (Illustration credit 2.16) Had it not been for her children, “life would have meant very little” to Lucretia after her husband’s death When this photograph was taken of the former first lady with her grandchildren in 1906, she had already been a widow for a quarter of a century Lucretia would live another twelve years, thirty-seven years longer than James (Illustration credit 2.17) In the years following Garfield’s death, Bell continued to invent, helped to found the National Geographic Society, established a foundation for the deaf, and did what he could for those who needed him most In 1887, he met Helen Keller and soon after helped her find her teacher, Annie Sullivan Keller would remember her meeting with Bell as the “door through which I should pass from darkness into light.” (Illustration credit 2.18) ... the sorceries of the Alchemist, the beautiful laws of chemistry; for the dreams of the Astrologer, the sublime truths of astronomy; for the wild visions of Cosmogony, the monumental records of. .. on the night of June 11, 1880, the passengers and crew of the steamship Stonington found themselves wrapped in impenetrable blackness They could feel the swell of the sea below them, and they... of the Stonington watched in horror, the men and women of the Narragansett, frantic to escape the re, began to throw themselves and their children over the sides of the blazing ship into the