(1831–1881)
James Garfield was a Civil War officer who fought at the bloodbaths of Shiloh and Chickamauga. But he had already “seen the elephant” (as Civil War soldiers liked to say) at the lesser-known battle of Middle Creek (Kentucky) early in 1862, when he led his Union troops to a victory against superior odds. Prior to the war, Garfield had been an academic on the fast track, but—catapulted by his success on the battlefield, despite no real prior experience—he won a congressional seat for Ohio in 1863.
Though Garfield was a skilled orator, it was a surprise when he was selected as the Republican candidate for president in 1880. This happened after the “Stalwart” faction (backing Ulysses S. Grant for a third term) and the “Half-Breeds” (initially backing James G. Blaine of Maine) became mired in a stalemate. Garfield often claimed he never had the “fever” to be president. He went on to defeat General Winfield Scott Hancock, the Democratic candidate—by a mere ten thousand votes—to become the twentieth president of the United States. He was president for just two hundred days, and for eighty of those he was incapacitated. Only William Henry Harrison was president for a shorter time period.
Garfield is one of a select group of presidents (Lincoln, McKinley, and John F. Kennedy are the others) who were assassinated while in office. In Garfield’s case, the assassin was a deranged and deluded man named Charles Guiteau who believed that the Garfield administration had thwarted his ambitions to be named U.S. ambassador to France.
The bitter man gunned down Garfield (exclaiming: “I am a Stalwart! And now Arthur is president!”) at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station on July 2, 1881. Shocked, Garfield uttered, “My God, what is this?” Bullets pierced Garfield’s body, damaging his ribs; eighty days later the president died, most likely from septic complications from the very hands of the medical team attempting to save him.
Garfield was a moderate drinker—apparently he liked an occasional beer—but his doctors, as was the thinking of the time, did not hesitate to use brandy and whiskey (“stimulants” as they were typically referred to) in both his initial and continuing treatment after being shot. Dr. Alexander Graham Bell also tried to assist with a metal detector, hoping to help locate the most dangerous bullet—but the projectile, embedded behind his pancreas, was found only after Garfield’s autopsy.
James Garfield was the last American president born in a log cabin. His father, Abram Garfield, was a large-sized character, both in actual size and in legendary deeds. For example, Abram was said to have been a champion wrestler in his region and also a man who (according to one biographer) could drain a sizeable container of whiskey “and no man dared call him coward.”
James was educated at Western Reserve (in present-day Cleveland) and Williams College in Massachusetts. There were no reports of feats involving whiskey kegs, but Garfield did once receive criticism for having a keg of ale on campus—though he claimed to have purchased it for medicinal purposes.
As if following the example of his fellow Ohioan—the temperance-minded Rutherford B. Hayes—Garfield neither drank nor served wine in the Executive Mansion. Garfield’s predecessor, Ulysses S. Grant, had left behind a rather substantial wine cellar, but Garfield’s time in the Executive Mansion was so short (barely six months) that there were no receptions there that would have required the serving of quality wines or liquors.
According to the diary of Thomas Donaldson, Garfield did venture out for an occasional beer. Donaldson (a fellow Ohioan who had great access to the Executive Mansion under both Hayes and Garfield) noted this in his writings after some casual chats with Executive Mansion staff.
Washington, D.C., [Wednesday] Jan. 19th, 1881.—[Alphonso T.] Donn, [William D.] Allen and other door-keepers [and ushers] at the White House often speak to me of the habits of the several Presidents they have served under. General Grant was generally out at night, out visiting and with cronies. President Hayes usually walked out in clear and fine weather, and always walked home when out in the evening . . . Mr. Lincoln drank nothing. Mr. Johnson drank a good deal and not much wine. General Grant [drank] some, and Mr. Hayes nothing. Mr. Garfield liked to walk out and liked beer and drank but little else.
A common political tactic of that era was to accuse your opponent of heavy drinking. Garfield—who, by examining all the evidence, was at most a moderate imbiber—nonetheless had to deal with that political dart during a first defense of his Ohio congressional seat.
In the words of Garfield biographer Allan Peskin:
There were also some potentially damaging rumors circulating through the district to the effect that Garfield had become a drunkard in the army and was now leading a life of the grossest profligacy in Washington. Garfield was perplexed as to how these charges could be answered. He admitted privately that his life was not spotless: “I have played cards as an amusement with a friend and I have sometimes tasted wine. . . .”
Garfield managed to get reelected, despite the alcohol-related aspersions—and his criticism of President Lincoln, whom he saw as too moderate and plodding on the slavery issue.
As was fairly common practice at the time, the doctors trying to save Garfield’s life used alcohol (brandy, rum, claret, and whiskey all were called upon) as part of his medical treatment.
None of this, of course, served to save the president’s life. With the huge advantage of hindsight—and the advancement of medical know-how—biographers, historians, and modern medical experts suggest that Garfield might have survived his initial wounds had his doctors not infected him by poking their unsanitary hands and medical utensils inside the patient in an attempt to find the bullet.
PRAYER, BLISS, AND DONALDSON’S WHISKEY
One of Garfield’s doctors—D. W. Bliss (whose given first name was actually “Doctor”)—allegedly fielded a suggestion from a newspaper reporter that some people believed the wounded president’s health had slowly rebounded (Garfield did, for brief stints, seem to gain strength during his ordeal, only to fail again) due to the power of prayer.
Bliss supposedly replied. “They may think so. In my opinion it was whiskey.” And the whiskey used in Garfield’s treatment most likely came from Thomas Donaldson’s very best stock.
In his diary entries, entered in late August, Donaldson optimistically penned:
I told them at the White House that there were two reasons why Garfield would not die: first, He is an Ohio man, and none die in office; [and] second, I supplied the whiskey used, 25 years old, and no person was ever known to die while using this whiskey.
Unfortunately, neither prayer nor well-aged whiskey (or being from the Buckeye State) could save Garfield. He died several weeks later—on September 19—at the New Jersey seashore.
One of the last letters of correspondence between Garfield and his wife, Crete, (dated June 30, 1881) contained a first paragraph plea from Crete that the president should bring some port to their vacation spot on the New Jersey shore.
My Darling:
For two nights I have taken a glass of port wine and conclude that it is one reason that I have slept better, but I have only a little more wine and if you can bring me a little more that you can trust as pure port, I think it may be of advantage to me. . . .
Two days later, while waiting to board a train to New Jersey, the president was shot by his deluded assassin at the Washington, D.C., train station.
Although Reverend Samuel Burchard’s infamous political faux pas of “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion” inadvertently helped elect Grover Cleveland (in 1884), then U.S. congressman James Garfield had expressed similar sentiments—in fact, four years prior. Fearing that the Republicans (supporting Hayes) had lost the 1876 election to Tilden, he wrote in a private letter to his friend Corydon Fuller on November 9, 1876:
It is very hard to go on with the work of the great campaign with so much grief in my heart . . . I spoke almost every day till the election; but it now appears that we are defeated by the combined power of rebellion, Catholicism and whiskey, a trinity very hard to conquer.
The Hayes forces, of course, later prevailed in the electoral vote—with a controversial swing of twenty unresolved votes in Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oregon coming in for the GOP. But, judging from Garfield’s letter, even he thought that the Republicans had lost until those much-contested votes helped Hayes take the Executive Mansion.
Temperance forces hoped to persuade Garfield to follow the lead of the Hayes Executive Mansion—that is, to ban alcohol from presidential dinners and celebrations. Garfield managed to sidestep their advances and—with the urging of his secretary of state, James Blaine—he intended to bring up some of the fine wines (left over from President Grant’s day) from the Executive Mansion cellar. But Garfield died before he had much chance to sample or share those vintages.