When put on trial for the assassination of President James Garfield, Charles Guiteau protested that he’d merely shot Garfield: his doctors had killed him. As crazy as Guiteau was — and his membranes were definitely scrambled — he may have had a point. Destiny of the Republic is a fascinating look at the life of James Garfield that largely focuses on his medical trial after being shot, incorporating lengthy discussion of medicine and experimental technologies of the day. For all its coverage of Alexander Graham Bell’s attempts to fashion a metal detector of sorts to find bullets, though, this is a book of the human spirit — in its silly pride, its nobility, its capacity for love and work, and — sometimes — its sheer irrationality. While I’d first ignored this title when looking for a Garfield biography, watching Death by Lightning made it a must-read, and I’m glad I did. Every little bit of it was brimming over with interest for me.

James Garfield has one of the most extraordinary poverty-to-power stories I’ve read. While Andrew Johnson undoubtedly came from more adverse circumstances, Garfield was so admired he was nominated by acclamation to the presidency at a convention where he’d attended principally to nominate another member of the GOP. Garfield is raised on a struggling farm, runs off to become a boatman on the Canal, nearly drowns, then becomes a teacher, lawyer, and finally politician. He served in the American Civil War and earned lauds for frustrating an early Confederate incursion into Kentucky (splitting his troops into three parts to make the Confederate force think they were surrounded by a superior force) and later served nearly two decades in Congress before reaching the highest office in the land. Garfield came of age in a good time for Republicans: the Democrats, even in the North, were haunted by the ‘bloody flag’ of the Rebellion, so the GOP dominated national politics for decades. That meant an increasing level of corruption, however, and Garfield came to office when the Republicans were divided between the business-as-usual Stalwarts and the Reforming Half-Breeds. Garfield was slightly closer to the Half-Breeds, but was saddled with a Stalwart vice president to keep the New York election machine happy. Then, alas, he was shot — shot by a mentally unwell and frustrated office seeker with a wild biography. The life of Charles Guiteau would be hard to believe had it not been so public. He’s frequently a side-subject here as we witness his troubled relationship with the GOP establishment — first courting them in a pathetic way, then later deciding he was the Hand of God destined to shoot Garfield — but the meat of the book is poor Garfield’s poor medical predicament.

We know now that the bullet which entered Garfield’s body clipped a bone but otherwise did no damage, avoiding major organs and coming to rest near his spine. Had Garfield simply been left alone — the entry wound properly cleaned and dressed — he would have been able to recover, and like so many soldiers resumed life walking around with lead in him. As it happened, though, the doctors’ aggressive attempts to Find the Bullet — probing with dirty fingers and medical tools — widened the wound, turning a minor path into a highway for germs and other bacteria. Antiseptic theory and practice was known at the time, but rejected by the American medical establishment who thought it silly and prohibitively troublesome. Those familiar with the thesis of Kuhn’s Nature of Scientific Revolutions will see evidence here: younger doctors who were more familiar with Lister’s theory of antiseptic practice were appalled at Garfield’s treatment, but completely shut out by the now-notorious Doctor Bliss. (Doctor was, believe it or not, his first name.) Bliss had been practicing for decades and was completely entrenched in conventional practice, and to make matters worse he was a raging narcissistic who aggressively took over Garfield’s care and shut out all other input. Respectable physicians who had been serving the Garfield family, including Dr. Edson (Mrs. Garfield’s female doctor) were reduced to support staff. Bliss proved to be an absolute tyrant, demanding that Garfield be kept in isolation to prevent him from talking, and keeping the president from his family and staff despite the needs of the country and Garfield’s own desperate desire for companionship. It’s a bleak story on that front, but very interesting from a history-of-medicine angle.

What saves Destiny from being a depressing account of a good man dying of medical malpractice is both the ongoing looks at his assailant — whose cheerful self-delusion is abhorrent yet darkly funny — and the long appraisal of Garfield himself. Garfield must have known, at some point, that he was going to die. Was it right or just? No. He had been shot by a madman and sabotaged by another wearing a lab coat, doomed to be riddled with abscesses and pus and die in pain. And yet Garfield does not fall apart. He does not complain; he suffers silently. When he was shot, his first words were about others; despite the enormous fuss people were making about him (creating air-conditioning and metal detectors to help), he did not focus on his infirmity but did his best to maintain an upbeat, caring temperament. Only when the end drew near did he insist that he wanted to be taken to the ocean — the young farmboy who longed for the sailor’s life was now an older man who drew spiritual nourishment, if not medical recovery, from the wild and wasteful ocean. We are also treated to Chester Arthur’s fantastic redemption arc, as Garfield’s shooting forces him to consider how craven his ambitions have made him, how loathed he is by the American public. He is consumed by sorrow and self-loathing. And yet there is light in the darkness, a piercing ray of grace: one woman, an invalid named Julia Sand, began writing him letters to admonish and encourage him to redeem himself before the public, despite their and despite his own doubts. And…he did. She became to him a Beatrice, beckoning the Gilded Age Dante out of a very dark wood.

Quotations

For the past five years, she had felt “dead and buried,” but the attempt on Garfield’s life and Americans’ complete lack of faith in Arthur had inspired her to attempt to inspire him. She was as brutally honest in her assessment of the situation as she was galvanizing. “Your kindest opponents say: ‘Arthur will try to do right’—adding gloomily—‘He won’t succeed, though—making a man President cannot change him,’ ” she wrote. “But making a man President can change him! Great emergencies awaken generous traits which have lain dormant half a life. If there is a spark of true nobility in you, now is the occasion to let it shine. Faith in your better nature forces me to write to you—but not to beg you to resign. Do what is more difficult & more brave. Reform!”

Arthur not only read Sand’s letters, he kept them. Over the years, he would keep twenty-three of her letters, each one urging him to be a better man than he had once believed he could be. “It is not the proof of highest goodness never to have done wrong,” Sand assured him, “but it is a proof of it … to recognize the evil, to turn resolutely against it.” Arthur had been given an extraordinary opportunity, and he had found in Sand perhaps the one person in the nation who believed him capable of change. “Once in awhile there comes a crisis which renders miracles feasible,” she wrote. “The great tidal wave of sorrow which has rolled over the country, has swept you loose from your old moorings, & set you on a mountaintop, alone.”

Before the train could reach its final destination, however, it stopped short. The cottage sat at the top of a hill, and the engine was not strong enough to breach it. No sooner had the problem become apparent than, out of the crowd of people who had waited all day in the tremendous heat for Garfield’s arrival, two hundred men ran forward to help. “Instantly hundreds of strong arms caught the cars,” Bliss wrote, “and silently … rolled the three heavy coaches” up the hill.

(This latter part was amazing to me: the president was dying, people knew he was dying. His trip to the oceanside cottage was the last he’d ever take, and when the engine failed the people in their love pushed it the rest of the way. Incredible.)