Destiny of the Republic

If you were to type in Lincoln into Google, the second website you see in the wiki for Abraham Lincoln. If you type Garfield into Google, on the other hand, all you get is information about an orange cat who hates Mondays. This probably has to do with the fact that James A. Garfield died after a long battle with infection after being shot only four months into his first term as our 20th President. Still, there is something to be said with the death of Garfield, as it marked the end of the spoils system of government and allowed for security to take a more active role in protecting the President. Millard's book manages to display all this and more in her text that I found highly enjoyable and very engaging.

One of this novel's biggest strengths is how it manages to weave the stories of four people, (Charles Guiteau, James Garfield, Alexander Bell, and Dr. Doctor Bliss) together in such a satisfying way. History does not occur in a vacuum, and this book manages to provide excellent context into all their lives and how they intersect on this one important event.

Millard also does a good job explaining the context to the many elements that helped to make this event possible. She is not afraid to lay blame or judgement for who she thinks caused Garfield's death, and she does well to show that it was a multitude of factors. There was the spoils system, which allowed people to be selected to an office not because they were right for the job, but more for what they had done for the politician in question. Then there was Garfield's selection at the party's nomination, where it just seemed to be fate that he be selected over Grant, who was trying to run for a third term.

Arguably the section of the book that gets the biggest focus, and indeed what eventually plays the most important role when it comes to Garfield's death, is the development and thoughts on medicine in the early 1880's. Many doctors wanted to help the patient with practices that, while common for the time, could be considered horrific today by any common citizen, let alone members of the medical community. Doctors liked seeing a person filled with pus, as they believed that was normal and healthy. Assuming they tried to sterilize the tools they used at all, they would only do the tips of the tools, leaving the gripped ends exposed with bacteria that would then make their way to the disinfected parts. Doctors, when performing any kind of surgery would not wash their hands, or even change out of their civilian clothes. If they did use a lab coat, many of them saw it as source of pride and experience to see amounts of blood and pus on it. The more it had, the more it spoke to your experience as a doctor and the people you had helped. All these things that would make a modern person shudder was what would ultimately kill Garfield after he was shot.

Next, we have Charles Guiteau, the office seeker who would sentence Garfield to death by shooting him in the back. This man, to put it bluntly, was his own brand of crazy. He failed at nearly everything he tried to do in life, from being a lawyer, to a traveling evangelist, to living in a free-love commune. Eventually, he believed, somehow, that he was owed a commission to France by Garfield. Through his letters that show his delusions of grandeur, Guiteau tries, unsuccessfully to get the appointment he is thought due. When he does not, he then thinks that he needs to kill the president because it will save the Republican party, and because God told him too. Millard shows this man and how he is seen as insane from the word go as soon as we meet him at the beginning of the book. She does such a good job painting his inner mental instability through his outward writings, I could not help but wonder if there was some research done on his actions and if any modern doctors had put forth any theories about what was wrong with Guiteau. In fact, after the trial and his execution (in which he acts as insane as ever) Guiteau is almost never mentioned again. This can seem like a missed opportunity, as it seems like a natural extension of Millard's writing to go from discussing physical medicine to mental health treatment of the era and how it compares to today.

As far as Garfield's Presidential legacy is concerned, Millard portrays it as though we lost a great Lincoln or FDR. While I won't deny that he definitely was a good man and could have been great after senator Roscoe Conkling stopped getting in his way, how he is represented here is perhaps too good to be true. As far as the reader is concerned, the worst thing that Garfield has ever done, according to Millard, is have an affair, which he quickly apologizes for and breaks off early on in his marriage. His attitude to me on issues such as African American rights seems too squeaky clean and it requires further study to really get an unbiased picture of the man.

In either case, this is an excellent text that does a very good job at working the lives of several people together into a single event. As far as a presidential biography goes, it may not be the most comprehensive, but what it does manage to do far outweighs what I wish it had done. I loved the writing style and the journey this book took me on. I will certainly be thinking about this book, and Garfield in general, in the weeks to come. I give it a five out of five.