1 Crossing the Long Island Sound: New York Times, June 13, 1880.
2 Although most of the passengers: Report of the Proceedings in the Case of the United States v. Charles J. Guiteau, Tried in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, Holding a Criminal Term, and Beginning November 14, 1881 (1882), 583–84. (Hereafter United States v. Guiteau.)
3 Absorbed in his own thoughts: Ibid.
4 As the Stonington recoiled: Harper’s Weekly, July 3, 1880.
5 On board the Narragansett: New York Times, June 13, 1880; Harper’s Weekly, July 3, 1880; Manitoba Daily Free Press, June 26, 1880.
6 As the passengers of the Stonington watched in horror: Daily Evening Bulletin, June 12, 1880.
7 In just minutes, the fire grew in intensity: Indiana Statesman, June 17, 1880.
8 As the tragedy unfolded before him: United States v. Guiteau, 583–84.
9 The frightened and ill-prepared crew: Indiana Statesman, June 17, 1880.
10 When the Stonington finally staggered: New York Times, June 13, 1880.
11 The ship’s bow had been smashed in: Notes from the Stonington Historical Society.
12 Guiteau, however, believed that luck: United States v. Guiteau, 598.
1 Even severed as it was: Gross and Snyder, Philadelphia’s 1876 Centennial Exhibition, 125; Hilton, The Way It Was, 190–91.
2 Across the lake from the statue: Garfield, Diary, May 10, 1876, 3:290.
3 Although he was a congressman: Ibid.
4 With fourteen acres of exhibits: Gross and Snyder, Philadelphia’s 1876 Centennial Exhibition, 67–82.
5 In fact, so detailed was his interest in mathematics: Dunham, The Mathematical Universe, 95–101.
6 “The scientific spirit has cast out the Demons”: Garfield, Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives, December 16, 1867.
7 After his first day at the exposition: Shaw, Lucretia, 68.
8 With characteristic seriousness of purpose: Garfield, Diary, May 11, 1876, 3:291.
9 As fairgoers stared in amazement: Gross and Snyder, Philadelphia’s 1876 Centennial Exhibition, 73. Edison would invent the electric light just three years later.
10 So incomplete and uncertain: Hilton, The Way It Was, 86.
11 Is freedom “the bare privilege of not being chained?”: Quoted in Peskin, Garfield, 253.
12 “instruments for the curing”: “Scenes in the Grand Hall,” New York Times, May 14, 1876.
13 His first child: Garfield, Diary, 1:xxxvii.
14 With his quick, crisp stride: Gross and Snyder, Philadelphia’s 1876 Centennial Exhibition, 22.
15 In many ways, Garfield had less in common: Hilton, The Way It Was, 189.
16 Next door to Machinery Hall: Gross, Philadelphia’s 1876 Centennial Exhibition, 26–29.
17 Inside, at the far east end of the building: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 193–95; Mackenzie, Alexander Graham Bell, 119; Post, 1876, 63; Gross, Philadelphia’s 1876 Centennial Exhibition, 30.
18 Bell’s school would administer: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 119.
19 From the moment Bell had stepped: Mackenzie, Alexander Graham Bell, 120.
20 To his horror, when he examined: Grosvenor and Wesson, Alexander Graham Bell, 71.
21 When Bell had finally reached: Mackenzie, Alexander Graham Bell, 119; Post, 1876, 63.
22 Fearing that he would be forgotten: Mackenzie, Alexander Graham Bell, 121.
23 “How do you do, Mr. Bell?”: Ibid., 122; Grosvenor and Wesson, Alexander Graham Bell, 72.
24 With the judges waiting anxiously nearby: Bell to his parents, June 27, 1876; Mackenzie, Alexander Graham Bell, 122.
25 After the group had crossed the vast hall: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 195.
26 As the judges gathered around him: Ibid., 196.
27 Leaning into a transmitter: Mackenzie, Alexander Graham Bell, 123.
28 Sitting at the table, with the iron box receiver: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 197.
29 Although the results were dramatic: Noble, The Courage of Dr. Lister, 134.
30 Even Dr. Samuel Gross: Gross had personally invited Lister to Philadelphia to talk about antisepsis, but apparently only as an opportunity to discredit it.
31 “Little, if any faith”: Clarke et al., A Century of American Medicine, 1776–1876, 213.
32 There was a much-admired exhibit: Post, 1876, 153.
33 “American surgeons are renowned”: Ashhurst, Transactions of the International Medical Congress of Philadelphia, 1876, 517.
34 For three hours, Lister did all he could: Ibid., 535.
35 “It is worth some trouble”: “Exsection” is a nineteenth-century term for excision.
36 “glad to have you convince us”: Ashhurst, Transactions of the International Medical Congress of Philadelphia, 1876, 532.
37 A few weeks after Lister tried in vain: Garfield, Diary, September 3, 1876, 3:344.
38 At his home in Washington, he watched helplessly: Ibid., October 25, 1876, 3:370.
39 “I am trying to see through it”: Ibid., October 27, 1876, 3:371.
40 “The children were not pleased”: Ibid., November 21, 1875, 3:186.
1 James Garfield’s father, Abram: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield, 9.
2 It consisted of one room: Alger, From Canal Boy to President, 3.
3 Like his ancestors, who had sailed: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield, 2.
4 In 1819, he and his half brother: Ibid., 3; Conwell, The Life, Speeches, and Public Services of James A. Garfield, 34.
5 Although land was available: Conwell, The Life, Speeches, and Public Services of James A. Garfield, 37.
6 Soon after their arrival, they met: Ibid., 34.
7 In 1829 the two couples: Ibid., 37.
8 When Abram had seen the wildfire: Ridpath, The Life and Work of James A. Garfield, 21–22.
9 “Let us never praise poverty”: Garfield to J. H. Rhodes, November 19, 1862, in Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield, 36.
10 Between them, working as hard as they could: Ridpath, The Life and Work of James A. Garfield, 23.
11 So little did they have to spare: Alger, From Canal Boy to President, 5.
12 “received no aid, worked and won”: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield, 11.
13 “If I ever get through a course of study”: Ibid., 53.
14 She came from a long line: Conwell, The Life, Speeches, and Public Services of James A. Garfield, 35.
15 She donated some of her land: Alger, From Canal Boy to President, 6.
16 “Whatever else happens”: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield, 15.
17 Although he could not swim: Ibid., 22.
18 Garfield’s first job on the canal: Ibid., 23.
19 Now it was midnight: Ibid., 24.
20 “Carefully examining it”: Ibid., 24–25.
21 “Providence only could have saved”: New York Times, September 20, 1881.
22 “As I approached the door”: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield, 25.
23 “I took the money”: Ibid., 26.
24 By the fall of 1851, Garfield had transformed: The Western Reserve Eclectic Institute would become Hiram College in 1867.
25 “It was without a dollar of endowment”: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield, 44.
26 Unable to afford tuition: Dean, “Reminiscences of Garfield: Garfield the Student, the Eclectic Institute,” Hiram College Archives.
27 “tread was firm and free”: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield, 46.
28 “The ice is broken”: “Rough Sketch of an Introduction to a Life of General Garfield,” typescript, Hiram College Archives.
29 His day began at 5:00 a.m.: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield, 58.
30 “If at any time I began to flag”: Ibid., 45.
31 So vigorously did Garfield: Shaw, Lucretia, 9.
32 “There is a high standard”: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield, 74.
33 “I am aware that I launch out”: Garfield, Diary, August 23, 1859, 1:340–41.
34 “no heart to think of anything”: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield, 160.
35 Four months after Confederate: Ridpath, The Life and Work of James A. Garfield, 92.
36 “pride and grief commingled”: Garfield to Lucretia Garfield, September 23, 1863, in Shaw, Crete and James, 189.
37 “I hope to have God on my side”: Perry, Touched with Fire, 60.
38 Garfield’s regiment did not have: Ibid., 59–63.
39 After he received his orders: Conwell, The Life, Speeches, and Public Services of James A. Garfield, 139.
40 In the end, the struggle: Perry, Touched with Fire, 76–87.
41 “The [Confederate] regiment and battery”: Ibid.
42 “resting there after the fatigue”: Peskin, Garfield, 118–19.
43 “something went out of him”: Ibid., 19. Although Garfield had no sympathy for the Confederates, he could not help but admire the passion with which they fought for their beliefs, no matter how misguided. “Let us at least learn from our enemies,” he wrote. “I have seen their gallantry in battle, their hoping against hope amid increasing disaster, and traitors though they are, I am proud of their splendid courage when I remember that they are Americans.”
44 “By thundering volley”: Ibid., 233.
45 “like throwing the whole current”: Garfield, Diary, November 2, 1855, 1:273. Although Garfield was a fierce and effective advocate for rights for freed slaves, his vocabulary at times reflected the racial prejudice of the time. While at the same time praising black men’s courage and defending their right to fight for “what was always their own,” he could casually refer to a neighborhood as “infested with negroes.”
46 “trust to God and his muscle”: Ibid., October 6, 1857.
47 “For what else are we so fearfully”: Peskin, Garfield, 234.
48 “A dark day for our country”: Garfield, Diary, December 2, 1859.
49 In the fall of 1862: Garfield defeated D. B. Woods 13,288 votes to 6,763.
50 “I have resigned my place in the army”: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield, 355–56. Garfield did not hold Lincoln in high esteem. He thought the president was not strong enough, and he feared that Lincoln would lose his bid for reelection because of his “painful lack of bold and vigorous administration.” Quoted in Peskin, Garfield, 239.
51 “What legislation is necessary”: Peskin, Garfield, 234.
52 “who have been so reluctantly compelled”: Ibid., 253.
53 As head of the Appropriations Committee: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield, 796.
54 Garfield even defended: Ibid., 826–27.
55 “law of life”: Garfield, Diary, December 31, 1880, 4:499–500.
56 “I suppose I am morbidly sensitive”: Peskin, Garfield, 301.
57 “first, I should make no pledge”: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield, 140–41.
58 “if the Senatorship is thus”: Peskin, Garfield, 340.
59 After a landslide victory: Ibid., 447.
60 “I have so long and so often”: Garfield, Diary, February 5, 1879.
61 “wait for the future”: Rockwell, “From Mentor to Elberon.”
1 “Don’t fail to write me”: Garfield to Lucretia Garfield, May 29, 1880, in Shaw, Crete and James, 369.
2 “The first half of my term”: Hoogenboom, Rutherford B. Hayes, 402–3.
3 Hayes’s abdication: Clancy, The Presidential Election of 1880, 82.
4 The Half-Breeds had two top candidates: Presidential nominees would be chosen at their party’s national conventions until the mid-twentieth century.
5 Although the Republican Party: Andrew Johnson was a Democrat and a southerner, but to prove that they embraced all men loyal to the Union, and to ensure Abraham Lincoln’s election, the Republicans had made him one of their own by choosing him to be Lincoln’s vice president. He became president after Lincoln was assassinated.
6 The street he was walking on: Author interview with Chicago History Museum; Encyclopedia of Chicago, “Chicago’s Lakefront Landfill,” http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/3713.html.
7 At the time of the fire: PBS American Experience, “People & Events: The Great Fire of 1871,” www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/chicago/peopleevents/e_fire.html; Encyclopædia Britannica, online, “Chicago Fire of 1871.”
8 Within a year of the fire: Rayfield, “Tragedy in the Chicago Fire and Triumph in the Architectural Response,” http://www.lib.niu.edu/1997/iht419734.html.
9 “Fresh crowds arriving”: Garfield, Diary, May 31, 1880, 4:424.
10 The Interstate Industrial Exposition Building: Encyclopedia of Chicago, “Places of Assembly,” www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/333.html. The Interstate Industrial Exposition Building was razed twelve years later to make room for Chicago’s Art Institute.
11 “the cool air of the lake”: “The President-Makers,” New York Times, June 5, 1880.
12 Although the hall could accommodate: “The Convention and Its Work,” New York Times, June 3, 1880; “The Story of the Ballots,” New York Times, June 8, 1880; photograph of convention floor, published in several sources.
13 “Blaine! Blaine!”: Quoted in Peskin, Garfield, 465.
14 “asked me to allow his brother”: Garfield to Lucretia Garfield, June 2, 1880, in Shaw, Crete and James, 373.
15 “It is evident”: Hoogenboom, Rutherford B. Hayes, 403.
16 “It is impossible”: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield, 50–51.
17 “too fond of talking”: Peskin, Garfield, 293.
18 “We have but faith”: “Garfield’s Eulogy of Lincoln,” New York Times, July 13, 1881.
19 “I have arisen at 7 this morning”: Garfield to Lucretia Garfield, June 2, 1880, in Shaw, Crete and James, 373.
20 Ten years earlier: Hoogenboom, Rutherford B. Hayes, 324.
21 Since then, Conkling had personally made: Doenecke, The Presidencies of James A. Garfield & Chester A. Arthur, 12.
22 He had helped to draft: Five years earlier, when Blanche Kelso Bruce, a former slave, was sworn in to the Senate after having been elected in Mississippi, Conkling escorted him up the Senate’s aisle when the senior senator from Bruce’s state refused to perform that traditional duty.
23 “thoroughly rotten man”: Quoted in Hoogenboom, Rutherford B. Hayes, 412.
24 He offended fellow senators: Ackerman, Dark Horse, 317n.
25 “some ill-bred neighbor”: Conkling, The Life and Letters of Roscoe Conkling, 44.
26 “his haughty disdain”: Chidsey, The Gentleman from New York, 91.
27 Even Garfield, who admired Blaine: After watching Blaine unashamedly try to prevent the publication of an article on black suffrage that Garfield had written because it would outshine Blaine’s own work, Garfield noted with astonishment, “It is apparent to me that Blaine cares more about the glory … than having the cause of negro enfranchisement defended.” Peskin, Garfield, 435.
28 “cool, calm, and after his usual fashion”: “The Struggle at Chicago,” New York Times, June 4, 1880.
29 “serene as the June sun”: “The Convention and Its Work,” New York Times, June 3, 1880.
30 “I shall never cease to regret”: “The Evening Session,” New York Times, June 6, 1880; Peskin, Garfield, 467.
31 “folded his arms across”: “The Evening Session,” New York Times, June 6, 1880; Peskin, Garfield, 467.
32 “New York is for Ulysses S. Grant”: “The Evening Session,” New York Times, June 6, 1880.
33 “New York requests that Ohio’s real candidate”: Ackerman, Dark Horse, 84.
34 “Conkling’s speech”: Garfield to Lucretia Garfield, June 6, 1880, in Shaw, Crete and James, 376.
35 “I have witnessed the extraordinary”: “Nomination of John Sherman,” James A. Garfield Papers, Library of Congress; Hoar, Autobiography of Seventy Years, 393–95.
36 “And now, gentlemen of the Convention”: “Nomination of John Sherman,” James A. Garfield Papers, Library of Congress.
37 “I presume I feel very much as you feel”: Conkling, The Life and Letters of Roscoe Conkling, 604.
38 The convention chairman: Hoar, Autobiography of Seventy Years, 395.
39 “The chair,” wrote one reporter: “The Evening Session,” New York Times, June 6, 1880.
40 “Never”: “Two Remarks of Garfield’s,” New York Times, July 10, 1881.
41 “General,” he said, “they are talking”: Peskin, Garfield, 472.
42 The balloting began at ten: “The Story of the Balloting,” New York Times, June 9, 1880.
43 Grant, as had been expected: “The Twenty-Eight Ballots,” New York Times, June 8, 1880.
44 “By high noon”: “The Excitement in this City,” New York Times, June 8, 1880.
45 “elbow [his] way through”: “Fight it Out!” Boston Globe, June 8, 1880.
46 On the thirty-fourth ballot: “The Story of the Balloting,” New York Times, June 9, 1880.
47 “Mr. President”: Hoar, Autobiography of Seventy Years, 397.
48 “No, no, gentlemen”: “Gen. Garfield’s Nomination,” New York Times, June 15, 1880.
49 “No candidate has a majority”: “The Story of the Balloting,” New York Times, June 9, 1880.
50 “If this convention nominates me”: Peskin, Garfield, 476.
51 “And then,” a reporter wrote with awe, “then the stampede came”: “The Story of the Balloting,” New York Times, June 9, 1880.
52 “Whenever the vote of Ohio”: Sherman, Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet, 775.
53 “Cast my vote for Sherman!”: Peskin, Garfield, 476.
54 “Shall the nomination”: “Roscoe Conkling, Political Boss,” New York Times, April 14, 1935.
55 “The delegates and others on the floor”: “The Story of the Balloting,” New York Times, June 9, 1880.
56 “Only once,” a reporter recalled, “did he express”: “The Story of the Balloting,” New York Times, June 9, 1880; “U.S.G.’s Waterloo,” Boston Globe, June 9, 1880.
57 “As Garfield entered the carriage”: “Gen. Garfield’s Nomination,” New York Times, June 15, 1880.
58 “grave and thoughtful expression”: Ibid.
59 When the carriage pulled: “The Story of the Balloting,” New York Times, June 8, 1880.
60 “pale as death”: “Gen. Garfield’s Wife Notified,” New York Times, June 13, 1880.
1 From an early age: United States v. Guiteau, 348, 354, 419.
2 “My mother was dead”: Ibid., p. 547
3 Charles’s own fanaticism grew: Carden, Oneida, xiii.
4 Like most of Noyes’s followers: Ibid., 43.
5 “unhealthy and pernicious”: Ibid., 49–54.
6 “up to the very moment”: Ibid., 49–50.
7 “You prayed God”: Guiteau to J. H. Noyes, no date, Library of the New York City Bar.
8 “I ask no one to respect me”: Guiteau to “Mr. Burt,” no date, Library of the New York City Bar.
9 “God’s minute man”: Guiteau to George Campbell, June 21, 1865, Library of the New York City Bar.
10 “in the employ of Jesus Christ”: Guiteau to “The Community,” no date, Library of the New York City Bar.
11 “Chas. J. Guiteau of England”: Clark, The Murder of James A. Garfield, 4–5.
12 “the Community women”: Noyes, “Guiteau v. Oneida Community,” 3.
13 In fact, so thorough: Rosenberg, The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, 19.
14 “practically a Shaker”: United States v. Guiteau, 549.
15 “egotism and conceit”: Ibid., 297; Rosenberg, The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, 19–20.
16 “destined to accomplish”: Guiteau v. Oneida Community, 3.
17 “God and my own conscience”: Guiteau to “The Community,” no date.
18 “warm friend of the Bible”: Guiteau to “The Community,” April 10, 1865.
19 “labored there for weeks and months”: United States v. Guiteau, 297.
20 “lost [his] eternal salvation”: Ibid., 556.
21 “asked him three questions”: Ibid., 299.
22 “The style and plea of his conduct”: Beard, “The Case of Guiteau—A Psychological Study,” 32.
23 “talked about theology”: United States v. Guiteau, 392.
24 Much more than the work itself: Clark, The Murder of James A. Garfield, 12–13.
25 “I asked Mr. John H. Adams”: United States v. Guiteau, 560.
26 “have been in the habit”: Ibid., 566.
27 “failure all the way through”: Ibid., 567.
28 After arriving in a town: Ibid., 573.
29 On most nights: Rosenberg, The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, 33.
30 “You may say that this is dead beating”: United States v. Guiteau, 570.
31 “I had no trouble”: Ibid., 569.
32 “you can arrest a man for a board-bill”: Ibid., 568.
33 “I was never so much tortured”: Ibid., 558–59.
34 “If Mr. Scoville would let me”: Guiteau to Frances Scoville, December 11, 1864.
35 Much larger sums of money: United States v. Guiteau, 562; Rosenberg, The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, 30.
36 Searching for another target: “Scoville, Guiteau and Oneida Community,” 4, Library of the New York City Bar; Rosenberg, The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, 24.
37 “moody [and] self-conceited”: United States v. Guiteau, 1048–49.
38 “If you intend to pay”: Guiteau to John Humphrey Noyes, February 19, 1868.
39 “I infer from your silence”: Guiteau to John Humphrey Noyes, March 2, 1868. Hostility against the Oneida Community grew until Noyes and his followers stopped their practice of complex marriage in 1879. A few years later, Noyes and a small group moved to Canada, where Noyes died in 1886.
40 “I have no ill will toward him”: Rosenberg, The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, 26, 30, 31.
41 “cut up a little wood for us”: United States v. Guiteau, 469.
42 “explosions of emotional feeling”: Ibid., 352.
43 “I had no doubt then”: Ibid., 476–77.
44 For the next five years: Ibid., 583.
45 Believing, as did most of the country: Ibid., 584.
46 “I remember distinctly”: Hayes and Hayes, A Complete History of the Life and Trial of Charles Julius Guiteau, Assassin of President Garfield (hereafter, A Complete History), 452.
1 The house, which the reporters: Garfield, Diary, August 22, 1880, 4:445.
2 “regular town”: Balch, Life of President Garfield, 314–15.
3 For the past three years: Garfield, Diary, 4:85, 88, 410.
4 To the house itself: National Park Service, “James A. Garfield National Historic Site,” www.nps.gov/jaga/index.htm.
5 “You can go nowhere”: Leech and Brown, The Garfield Orbit, 183.
6 “I long for time”: Garfield, Diary, September 24, 1879, 4:298–99.
7 “take the stump”: Peskin, Garfield, 482.
8 Happily left to his own devices: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James A. Garfield, 921.
9 “Result 475 bushels”: Garfield, Diary, July 31, 1880, 4:432.
10 While Garfield worried: Three independent parties had presidential candidates that year: the Greenback-Labor Party, which, as well as supporting the continuation of paper money, argued fiercely for workers’ rights; the Prohibitionists, who wanted a president who would follow in the footsteps of Hayes and ban alcohol in the White House, if not throughout the nation; and the Anti-Masons, which, as their name implied, opposed Freemasons, who they feared were trying to take over the country. Clancy, The Presidential Election of 1880, 157–66.
11 “Hancock the Superb”: “The Democratic Trojan Horse,” New York Times, July 31, 1880.
12 “rebel party”: Peskin, Garfield, 277.
13 In fact, Garfield had turned down the stock: The Transactions of the Credit Mobilier Company, and an Examination of that Portion of the Testimony Taken by the Committee of Investigation and Reported to the House of Representatives at the Last Session of the Forty-Second Congress which Relates to Mr. Garfield. Washington, 1873.
14 “There is nothing in my relation”: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James A. Garfield, 530.
15 In the end, the effort to renew: Leech and Brown, The Garfield Orbit, 218.
16 “Individuals or companys”: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James A. Garfield, 1039–41.
17 In New York, Garfield campaign clubs: New York Times, October 2, 1880; September 25, 1880; October 18, 1880.
18 “support Gen. Garfield for President”: New York Times, September 27, 1880.
19 In Washington, D.C., a former slave: New York Times, July 4, 1880.
20 “Now we’ll use a Freemen’s right”: Book of Election Songs, Song 21, microfilm at the Library of Congress, Garfield Papers.
21 “It could not have been larger”: New York Times, October 26, 1880.
22 “James A. Garfield must be our President”: Ibid.
23 “front porch talks”: Leech and Brown, The Garfield Orbit, 212.
24 “As the singers poured out”: Stanley-Brown, “My Friend Garfield.”
25 A few weeks later: Garfield, Diary, November 2, 1880, 4:480.
26 “coolest man in the room”: “At General Garfield’s Home,” New York Times, November 3, 1880.
27 “the news of 3 a.m.”: Garfield, Diary, November 3, 1880, 4:481.
28 “There is a tone of sadness”: Garfield, November 8, 1880, quoted in Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James A. Garfield, 1048.
1 As Garfield tried to accept: Grosvenor and Wesson, Alexander Graham Bell, 111.
2 “I did not realize”: “Bell’s ‘Electric Toy,’ ” New York Times, January 2, 1905.
3 By the summer of 1877: Grosvenor and Wesson, Alexander Graham Bell, 88.
4 That same year, President Hayes: Gray, Reluctant Genius, 180–81.
5 “A Professor Bell explained”: Mackenzie, Alexander Graham Bell, 193.
6 “the voice already carries”: Quoted in Grosvenor and Wesson, Alexander Graham Bell, 86.
7 “Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me”: Quoted in Mackenzie, Alexander Graham Bell, 160.
8 After Morse developed: Casson, The History of the Telephone; Lubrano, The Telegraph, 140–41.
9 “It can speak, but it won’t!”: Quoted in MacKenzie, Alexander Graham Bell, 215–16.
10 Although Bell deeply resented: Grosvenor and Wesson, Alexander Graham Bell, 75.
11 To add insult to injury: Ibid.; Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 173.
12 In a court of law: Gray, Reluctant Genius, 197. Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 270.
13 With Western Union’s defeat: Mackenzie, Alexander Graham Bell: The Man Who Contracted Space, p. 212.
14 The fighting, however, continued: MacKenzie, Alexander Graham Bell, 214.
15 “Of all the men who didn’t”: Quoted in ibid., 218. Although the legitimacy of Bell’s telephone patent has been scrutinized in hundreds of lawsuits, and over more than a century, the question of whether or not he invented the telephone continues to be raised. Perhaps the most persistent accusation against Bell is that he took the idea of a liquid transmitter from Elisha Gray. (For the most recent of these arguments, see A. Edward Evenson’s The Telephone Patent Controversy of 1876, and Seth Shulman’s The Telephone Gambit.) It should be noted, however, that Bell had been using liquid transmitters in experiments for several years before he filed his patent for the telephone. Moreover, Bell did not use a liquid transmitter either in the model he presented at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876, or in the telephone his company sold commercially.
16 “I am sick of the Telephone”: Bell to Mabel Bell, September 9, 1878, Bell Family Papers.
17 “hateful to me at all times”: Quoted in Grosvenor and Wesson, Alexander Graham Bell, 88.
18 “first incentive to invention”: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 26.
19 “Our earthly hopes”: Alexander Melville Bell to Alexander Graham Bell, May 28, 1870, Bell Family Papers.
20 His mother, who had homeschooled: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 20.
21 “I should probably have sought”: Quoted in Gray, Reluctant Genius, 104.
22 “As far as telegraphy is concerned”: Quoted in ibid., 136.
23 “I wish very much”: Eliza Bell to Alexander Graham Bell, March 7, 1880, Bell Family Papers.
24 “I have my periods”: Bell to Mabel Bell, March 1879, Bell Family Papers.
25 When struggling with an invention: Gray, Reluctant Genius, 3.
26 “wee bit fiddler”: New York Times, January 2, 1905.
27 “musical fever”: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 22.
28 Even to Bell’s father: Ibid., 19.
29 “I have serious fears”: Alexander Melville Bell to Alexander Graham Bell, May 19, 1873, Bell Family Papers.
30 “sort of telephonic undercurrent”: Gray, Reluctant Genius, 145.
31 “My mind concentrates itself”: Bell to Mabel Bell, December 12(?), 1885, Bell Family Papers.
32 By 1880, so frustrated: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 283.
33 “I have been almost”: Gardiner Greene Hubbard to Alexander Graham Bell, July 1880, Bell Family Papers.
34 “However hard and faithfully”: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 284.
35 In February of 1881: Bell to William Forbes, February 2, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
36 Along with the prize: Mackenzie, Alexander Graham Bell, 222.
37 Watson had left: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 282.
38 “These are germs”: Bell to Alexander Melville Bell and Eliza Bell, January 18, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
39 “functional derangement of the heart”: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 341.
40 “Edison was completely absorbed”: Tainter, “The Talking Machine and Some Little Known Facts in Connection with Its Early Development,” 12-A.
41 “I trust you will”: Bell to Mabel Bell, September 9, 1878, Bell Family Papers.
1 At 2:30 in the morning: Garfield, Diary, March 3, 1881, 4:552.
2 “no less than a half-dozen”: Almon F. Rockwell, “From Mentor to Elberon,” Century Magazine 23(1882), 431.
3 “the staggerings of my mind”: Ibid., March 1, 1881, 4:551.
4 With very few exceptions: During Washington’s first inauguration, which was held in New York City on April 30, 1789, he established the traditions of kissing the Bible after being sworn in to office and using the phrase “So help me God.” For his second inauguration, he delivered the shortest inaugural address in history, at just 135 words.
5 As transportation improved dramatically: The inauguration did not move to January 20 until 1933, when Congress ratified the Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution. Although the Twentieth Amendment was ratified on January 23, Franklin D. Roosevelt was still inaugurated on March 4 of that year. It wasn’t until his second inauguration, in 1937, that the January 20 date was established.
6 By the time a crowd: New York Times, February 1, 1881.
7 Just beyond the Mall: Another three years would pass before the Washington Monument was finally finished, and by then the Army Corps of Engineers would have to use a type of marble different from that in the original construction, leaving the top two-thirds of the monument slightly darker than the bottom third.
8 “free from snow”: “A New Chief Magistrate,” New York Times, March 5, 1881.
9 “The momentous question”: New York Times, November 18, 1880.
10 “the very picture”: New York Times, March 5, 1881.
11 “in a deafening chorus”: Ibid.
12 “Low bridge!”: New York Times, December 22, 1907.
13 “James A. Garfield sprung from the people”: New York Times, March 5, 1881.
14 “smile[d] quietly at the hard task”: “How the Address Was Received,” New York Times, March 5, 1881.
15 “The elevation of the negro race”: James A. Garfield, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1881.
16 “black men who had been slaves”: “How the Address Was Received,” New York Times, March 5, 1881.
17 “The emancipated race”: James A. Garfield, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1881.
18 “There was the utmost silence”: “How the Address Was Received,” New York Times, March 5, 1881.
19 “Mr. Garfield will doubtless leave”: New York Times, August 6, 1881, quoted in Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield, 435.
20 “No trades, no shackles”: Garfield, Diary, August 9, 1880, 4:439.
21 “I need hardly add”: Peskin, Garfield, 528.
22 On March 1, Levi Morton: Chidsey, The Gentleman from New York, 326; Connery, “Secret History of the Garfield-Conkling Tragedy,” 152.
23 “Allison broke down”: Garfield, Diary, March 4, 1881, 4:552.
24 “The Senate”: Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, 309.
25 “The nomination of Garfield”: John Sherman to Governor Foster, June 30, 1880; Sherman, Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet, 777–78.
26 “using his influence and power”: “The Republican Campaign,” New York Times, June 19, 1880.
27 “a little reckless”: Garfield, Diary, March 28, 1875, 4:48.
28 “I ask this”: Quoted in Peskin, Garfield, 519.
29 “His appointment would act”: Ibid., 517, 526.
30 The only public position Arthur had held: Reeves, Gentleman Boss, 63.
31 “The nomination of Arthur”: Ackerman, Dark Horse, 132.
32 “The Ohio men have offered”: Quoted in Hudson, Random Reflections of an Old Political Reporter, 96–99.
33 “For his enemies”: Rockwell, “From Mentor to Elberon,” Century Magazine, 437.
34 “a stranger entering the House”: Ridpath, The Life and Work of James A. Garfield, Twentieth President of the United States, 272–73.
35 “You old rascal”: Peskin, Garfield, 322.
36 “determined not to be classified”: Garfield, Diary, March 23, 1881, 4:562.
37 “Of course I deprecate war”: Quoted in Ackerman, Dark Horse, 324.
1 From an open window: The Oval Office would not be used as the president’s office until 1909, when William Howard Taft was president. Taft also renovated the room to change its shape from a rectangle to an oval.
2 “The eyes of Washington”: “Letter from Washington,” unnamed newspaper, June 3, 1881, Library of Congress.
3 “sat down to a good rattling talk”: Lucretia Garfield, Diary, April 15, 1881, in Garfield, Diary, 4:640.
4 With their help, she convinced: Seale, The President’s House, 516. Hayes’s wife, Lucille, was widely known as Lemonade Lucy because she refused to serve alcohol in the White House.
5 “abreast of current literature”: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield, 752.
6 “Every day I miss Spofford”: Ibid., 753.
7 While home in Mentor: Garfield, Diary.
8 “It is a pity”: Quoted in Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield, 923.
9 For Garfield, being able to work: Feis, Mollie Garfield in the White House, 60.
10 While nine-year-old Abe: Whitcomb and Whitcomb, Real Life at the White House, 174. The East Room is the largest room in the White House, and as such has often been used as a playroom by presidents’ children. Tad Lincoln tied a goat to a chair so that it could pull him through the room. Theodore Roosevelt’s children roller-skated through it, as did Jimmy Carter’s daughter, Amy.
11 “Whatever fate may await me”: Rockwell, “From Mentor to Elberon,” Century Magazine, 434. (Hoc opus, hic labor est. “That is the work, that is the task.” From The Aeneid, Book VI.)
12 “I am the first mother”: New York Times, March 23, 1881.
13 “cozy and home like”: New York Times, July 8, 1881.
14 “Slept too soundly”: Lucretia Garfield, Diary, March 5, 1881, in Garfield, Diary, 4:628.
15 “This is the way in which”: “Patronage in Our Politics,” New York Times, March 27, 1881.
16 “Almost everyone who comes to me”: Quoted in Peskin, Garfield, 515.
17 “Let us go into the Executive mansion”: Quoted in Mr. Lincoln’s White House, http://mrlincolnswhitehouse.org.
18 “My day is frittered away”: Garfield, Diary, June 13, 1880, 4:610.
19 “My God!”: Peskin, Garfield, 551.
20 “beasts at feeding time”: Peskin, Garfield, 551.
21 “These people would take”: Stanley-Brown, “Memorandum Concerning Joseph Stanley-Brown’s Relations with General Garfield,” 9.
22 “Secretary Blaine is especially sought after”: “A Crowd of Office Seekers,” Washington Post, March 9, 1881.
23 “When Dr. Johnson defined patriotism”: Quoted in Peskin, Garfield, 452–53.
24 The Secret Service had been established: Melanson, The Secret Service, 22.
25 “strong dispatch of sympathy”: Garfield, Diary, March 19, 1881, 4:561.
26 “allusion to our own loss”: Garfield, Diary, March 19, 1881, 4:561.
27 “We cannot protect our Presidents”: “A Lesson,” New York Times, July 4, 1881.
28 “Assassination can no more”: Sherman, Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet, 789.
29 Brown had met Garfield: Stanley-Brown, “Memorandum Concerning Joseph Stanley-Brown’s Relations with General Garfield.”
30 “Good morning, what can I do for you?”: Ibid., 2.
31 “Aspirations for the reflected glory”: Stanley-Brown, Stanley-Brown Family History, 1.
32 Brown’s grandfather Nathaniel Stanley: “Scope and Content Note,” Joseph Stanley-Brown Papers, 1. When Joseph, an avid genealogist, learned that his grandfather had changed his name from Stanley to Brown, he added Stanley to the end of his own name. Years later, Lucretia Garfield suggested that he hyphenate the two names, and he was thereafter known as Joseph Stanley-Brown. Feis, Mollie Garfield in the White House, 114–15; “Scope and Content Note,” Joseph Stanley-Brown Papers, Library of Congress.
33 In America, Nathaniel’s son: Unnamed newspaper, Hiram College archives.
34 When he was twelve: Stanley-Brown, “Memorandum Concerning Joseph Stanley-Brown’s Relations with General Garfield,” 1.
35 “The gracious, affectionate home life”: Ibid., 4.
36 “Where have you been”: Ibid.; Stanley-Brown, “My Friend Garfield,” 50.
37 “He is very bright and able”: Garfield, Diary, January 9, 1881, 4:522.
38 “Well, my boy”: Stanley-Brown, “Memorandum Concerning Joseph Stanley-Brown’s Relations with General Garfield,” 7–8.
39 Immediately following Garfield’s nomination: “Gen. Garfield’s Letters,” New York Times, June 29, 1880.
40 “There was no organized staff”: Stanley-Brown, “My Friend Garfield,” 50.
41 “How the President and his Private Secretary”: “An Hour Spent in the President’s Private Office,” unnamed newspaper, June 3, 1881.
42 The day after Garfield’s inauguration: United States v. Guiteau, 630–31.
43 “We have cleaned them out”: Ibid., 115–16.
44 “I have practiced law”: Ibid., 210.
45 “Being about to marry”: Beard, “The Case of Guiteau—A Psychological Study,” 30–31.
46 While still in New York, Guiteau: United States v. Guiteau, 585.
47 “All those leading politicians”: Ibid., 584.
48 “I have seen him at least ten times”: Ibid., 896.
49 “on free-and-easy terms”: Ibid., 896, 584–85.
50 Within days of his arrival in Washington: Ibid., 208.
51 “No day in 12 years”: Garfield, Diary, March 8, 1881, 4:555.
52 “I think I prefer Paris”: United States v. Guiteau, 209.
53 “The inclosed [sic] speech”: Ibid., 209.
54 “so that the President would remember”: Hayes and Hayes, A Complete History, 424.
55 “Of course, [Garfield] recognized me”: United States v. Guiteau, 586–87.
56 “His visits were repeated”: Ibid., 208.
57 “very large attendance”: Garfield, Diary, March 12, 1881, 4:557.
58 “the great roaring world”: Lucretia Garfield, Diary, March 12, 1881, in Garfield, Diary, 4:628.
59 Suddenly, Lucretia heard someone say: Ackerman, Dark Horse, 280; Rosenberg, The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, p. 29.
60 Guiteau had a strikingly quiet walk: Rosenberg, The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, 38; “Guiteau in Jail,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
61 “one of the men that made”: Ackerman, Dark Horse, 280.
62 “aching in every joint”: Lucretia Garfield, Diary, March 12, 1881, in Garfield, Diary, 4:628.
63 “chatty and companionable”: Whitcomb and Whitcomb, Real Life at the White House, 175.
1 “She is not well”: Garfield, Diary, May 3, 1881, 4:586.
2 “Crete”: Ibid., May 4, 1881, 4:587.
3 “My anxiety for her”: Ibid., May 8, 1881, 4:588.
4 Lucretia was the center: Shaw, Lucretia, 1–8.
5 “big, shy lad with a shock of unruly hair”: Typed paragraph, apparently written by Mary “Mollie” Garfield Brown, from the Western Reserve Historical Society archives.
6 “over and over upon the ground”: Peskin, Garfield, 349.
7 “never elated”: Quoted in Shaw, Lucretia, 2.
8 “generous and gushing affection”: Quoted in ibid., 31.
9 “The world”: Shaw, Crete and James, xii.
10 “Please pardon the liberty”: Ibid., 2.
11 “It is my desire”: Ibid., xii.
12 “I do not think I was born”: Quoted in Shaw, Lucretia, 2.
13 “For the past year”: Garfield, Diary, September 10, 1855, 4:271–72.
14 “Never before did I see”: Ibid., September 11, 1855, 4:272.
15 “I am not certain I feel”: Ibid., June 24, 1854, 4:251.
16 “There are hours when my heart”: Shaw, Crete and James, xii.
17 If their courtship was difficult: Ibid., ix, xiv.
18 “Before when you were away”: Ibid., 165–66.
19 “It seemed a little hard”: Ibid., 104.
20 “I believe after all”: Ibid., 210.
21 “gushing affection”: Ibid., 240.
22 “I here record”: Ibid., 242–43.
23 “You can never know”: Ibid., 374.
24 “Dear wife”: Quoted in Shaw, Lucretia, 84.
25 “It is almost painful”: Shaw, Crete and James, 233.
26 “life of my life”: Garfield, Diary, May 13, 1881, 4:590.
27 “the continent, the solid land”: Quoted in Peskin, Garfield, 347.
28 “to get her further from the river air”: Garfield, Diary, May 10, 1881, 4:589.
29 “I am sorry to say”: Harriet S. Blaine and Beale, Letters of Mrs. James G. Blaine, 202.
30 “I refused to see people”: Garfield, Diary, May 11, 1881, 4:590.
31 “I try to be cheerful”: Peskin, Garfield, 230.
32 Every day, Garfield consulted: Garfield, Diary, May 9, 1881, 4:589.
33 “fever powders”: Ibid., May 11, 1881, 4:589–90.
34 “If I thought her return”: Shaw, Lucretia, 101.
35 “In the majority of cases”: Crook, Through Five Administrations, 269.
36 “The President says it will be impossible”: United States v. Guiteau, 589.
37 “I will tell you how I do it”: Ibid., 633.
38 The technique had worked: Ibid., 221.
39 “Mr. Guiteau came into my office”: Ibid., 220.
40 “I lived”: Hayes and Hayes, A Complete History, 459.
41 Despite the constant humiliations: Ibid., 513–14.
42 “possessed of an evil spirit”: Ibid., 504.
43 “very proud and nice”: Ibid., 499.
44 After years of living as a traveling evangelist: “A Great Nation in Grief,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
45 While everyone else was wearing: United States v. Guiteau, 446.
46 “somewhat haggard and weak”: Ibid., 222.
47 When Guiteau did have an opportunity: Hayes and Hayes, A Complete History, 38.
48 “Do you know who I am?”: Crook, Through Five Administrations, 267.
49 “elected the President”: United States v. Guiteau, 445–46.
50 “He did not strike me”: Ibid., 446.
51 “The first time that I see”: Ibid., 446–47.
52 “to have a consulship”: Ibid., 128–29.
53 “We have not got to that yet”: Ibid., 647.
54 So frequent were Guiteau’s visits: Ibid., 202.
55 “he had, in my opinion”: Ibid., 647, 117.
56 Before Lucretia had fallen ill: Hinsdale, Garfield-Hinsdale Letters, 489.
57 “perfidy without peril”: Shaw, Lucretia, 95.
58 Not only had Garfield not consulted: Peskin, Garfield, 470.
59 “treacherously betray[ed] a secret trust”: Connery, “Secret History of the Garfield-Conkling Tragedy,” 149.
60 “casus belli”: Garfield, Diary, March 27, 1881, 4:565.
61 “I owe something”: Hinsdale, Garfield-Hinsdale Letters, 490.
62 Of more than one hundred newspapers: Peskin, Garfield, 569.
63 “has recognized Republicans”: “What the Newspapers Say,” New York Times, May 6, 1881.
64 Just two years earlier: “Marriage Starts Bride Down Aisle to Misery,” Washington Times, July 13, 2002. Kate Sprague’s husband would eventually divorce her, leaving her not only publicly humiliated and a social pariah, but penniless. By the end of her life, she would be reduced to selling eggs door to door, and, in 1899, would die from disease and malnutrition at the age of fifty-eight.
65 It was not until early May: Connery, “Secret History of the Garfield-Conkling Tragedy,” 146.
66 “Garfield has not been square”: Ibid.
67 After Robertson’s appointment: Doenecke, The Presidencies of James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur, 42.
68 “smiled and looked at me”: Connery, “Secret History of the Garfield-Conkling Tragedy,” 147.
69 “God will be merciful”: Garfield, Diary, May 15, 1881, 4:592.
70 “rebuke the President”: Peskin, Garfield, 571–72.
71 “Sir, Will you please”: “A Sensation in Politics,” New York Times, May 17, 1881.
72 “seemed to stupefy”: Ibid.
73 “a great big baby”: Peskin, Garfield, 572.
74 “a very weak attempt”: Garfield, Diary, May 16, 1881, 4:593.
75 A few days later, he announced: Ibid., March 21, 1881, 4:561.
76 “Having done all I fairly could”: Ibid., May 16, 1881, 4:593.
77 “with emphasis, it is ended”: Ibid., May 31, 1881, 4:602.
78 “Stung with mortification”: “Conkling’s Few Friends,” New York Times, June 2, 1881.
79 “A deep strong current”: Garfield, Diary, May 31, 1881, 4:602.
1 “like a flash”: United States v. Guiteau, 593.
2 “If the President was out of the way”: Hayes and Hayes, A Complete History, 428.
3 Guiteau was certain: United States v. Guiteau, 597.
4 “with renewed force”: Ibid., 593.
5 “no ill-will to the President”: Ibid., 215.
6 In fact, he believed that he had given: Hayes and Hayes, A Complete History, 428.
7 “It seems to me that the only way”: United States v. Guiteau, 210.
8 “Until Saturday I supposed”: Ibid., 211.
9 “immediate resignation”: Ibid., 117.
10 “he should be quietly kept away”: Crook, Through Five Administrations, 266–67.
11 “That is the way I test the Diety”: United States v. Guiteau, 593.
12 “I kept reading the papers”: Hayes and Hayes, A Complete History, 428.
13 “the divinity of the inspiration”: United States v. Guiteau, 593.
14 “I thought just what”: Hayes and Hayes, A Complete History, 430.
15 “Two points will be accomplished”: United States v. Guiteau, 219.
16 “in proper shape”: Hayes and Hayes, A Complete History, 429.
17 “a new line of thought”: Guiteau, The Truth, preface.
18 “better than the Bible”: United States v. Guiteau, 677.
19 Even The Truth’s publication: Ibid., 581; Clark, The Murder of James A. Garfield, 22.
20 The next stage of Guiteau’s plan: “Eyewitness,” American Heritage, February/March 1980.
21 “did not call it by name”: United States v. Guiteau, 224.
22 Two days later, George Maynard: Ibid., 223, 224.
23 “He had a peculiar manner”: Ibid., 222.
24 Guiteau explained that he had received: Ibid., 220–22.
25 That same day, Guiteau returned: Ibid., 636.
26 “One of the strongest pistols made”: Ibid., 224–25.
27 After striking a deal with O’Meara: Ibid., 224.
28 “I knew nothing about it”: Ibid., 637.
29 “The Lord inspired me”: Ibid., 593.
30 “I wanted to see what kind”: Ibid., 701.
31 “I thought it was a very excellent jail”: Ibid., 701.
32 “It would not do to go”: Hayes and Hayes, A Complete History, 430.
33 “there could not possibly be”: Ibid.
34 A member of the Disciples of Christ: Two other presidents have also been members of the Disciples of Christ: Lyndon B. Johnson and Ronald Reagan.
35 He had been an active and involved parishioner: Foster, The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, 349.
36 “a wise and holy purpose”: “A Pastor’s Tribute,” New York Times, August 19, 1881.
37 Guiteau knew exactly where Garfield’s church: United States v. Guiteau, 695.
38 “That,” he judged, “would be good chance”: Hayes and Hayes, A Complete History, 430.
39 “a very stupid sermon”: Garfield, Diary, June 12, 1881, 4:609.
40 “Next Sunday”: Hayes and Hayes, A Complete History, 430.
41 Before the next Sunday sermon: Ibid.
42 “we have concluded to take her”: Garfield, Diary, June 16, 1881, 4:610.
43 “I was all ready”: Hayes and Hayes, A Complete History, 431.
44 “intended to remove the President”: United States v. Guiteau, 216.
45 Garfield arrived back in Washington: Garfield, Diary, June 27, 1881, 4:617.
46 “sea air is too strong for her”: Ibid., June 28, 1881, 4:617.
47 On June 30: Taylor, Garfield of Ohio, 261–62; “A Great Nation in Grief,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
48 “death-like stillness about me”: “Lincoln’s Faith in Dreams,” New York Times, April 7, 1898.
49 “an ugly dream”: Shenk, Lincoln’s Melancholy, 209.
50 “reveal God’s meaning in dreams”: “The Burden of the Presidency,” New York Times, September 25, 1881.
51 “I started to plunge”: Garfield, Diary, January 21, 1881, 4:531.
52 “as foolish as it does to you”: “The Burden of the Presidency,” New York Times, September 25, 1881.
53 The night after his cabinet meeting: Garfield, Diary, 4:614, n. 191.
54 “had never heard him speak”: “The Night Before the Shooting,” New York Times, July 20, 1881.
55 After Henry left: Garfield, Diary, 4:618–19, n. 206.
56 “let the matter drop”: United States v. Guiteau, 692.
57 When Garfield reached Blaine’s house: Hamilton, Biography of James G. Blaine, 516.
58 As he waited for Blaine: Harriet S. Blaine and Beale, Letters of Mrs. James G. Blaine, 215.
59 “Mr. Garfield had sold himself”: United States v. Guiteau, 694.
60 “engaged in the most earnest conversation”: Ibid., 694; Hayes and Hayes, A Complete History, 434.
61 “My mind”: Hayes and Hayes, A Complete History, 436.
1 “as if we were in fact two babies”: Comer, Harry Garfield’s First Forty Years, 55.
2 “You are President”: Hamilton, Biography of James G. Blaine, 516.
3 To his sons’ astonishment: Comer, Harry Garfield’s First Forty Years, 55.
4 “There are a few additional lines”: Quoted in Feis, Mollie Garfield in the White House, 67.
5 “The work of the campaign”: Stanley-Brown, “Memorandum Concerning Joseph Stanley-Brown’s Relations with General Garfield,” 11.
6 “the tact and ability”: “Mr. Rogers’ Successor,” Washington Post, March 17, 1881.
7 “perfectly master of the situation”: “Some Stylish Turn-Outs,” Washington Post, May 1, 1881.
8 “with an almost pathetic longing”: Stanley-Brown, “My Friend Garfield,” 100.
9 “Goodbye, my boy”: Ibid.; Stanley-Brown, “Memorandum Concerning Joseph Stanley-Brown’s Relations with General Garfield,” 12.
10 The small caravan: Peskin, Garfield, 595.
11 “in conscious enjoyment”: Hamilton, Biography of James G. Blaine, 516.
12 When he opened his eyes at 5:00 a.m.: United States v. Guiteau, 631.
13 After reading about the president’s trip: “Riggs House Is Demolished,” Bryan Times, July 18, 1911.
14 “I can’t do anything for you to-day”: The Attempted Assassination of President Garfield, 34–35.
15 It was too early for breakfast: United States v. Guiteau, 705.
16 “I ate well”: Hayes and Hayes, A Complete History, 437.
17 “To General Sherman”: Guiteau to William Tecumseh Sherman, Library of Congress; United States v. Guiteau, 217.
18 “You can print this entire book”: United States v. Guiteau, 217.
19 “The President’s tragic death”: Ibid., 215–16.
20 “nice, clean shirt”: Ibid., 142, 705.
21 Before stepping out the door: Hayes and Hayes, A Complete History, 438; Clark, The Murder of James A. Garfield, 54.
22 Although he had taken his time: The station was razed in 1908, under the orders of President Theodore Roosevelt, and is now the site of the National Gallery of Art. B Street is now Constitution Avenue.
23 “Well, I will take you out there”: Hayes and Hayes, A Complete History, 438.
24 Approaching a newsstand, he asked: United States v. Guiteau, 186.
25 “Certainly”: Hayes and Hayes, A Complete History, 438; “Guiteau’s Murderous Plans,” New York Times, July 15, 1881.
26 “will wonder”: Belanger, “The Railroad in the Park,” 5–19.
27 “nuisance which ought long since”: Garfield, Diary, October 25, 1876, 3:370.
28 “I did not know, since that great sorrow”: Ibid., October 27, 1876, 3:371.
29 As the carriage carrying Garfield: United States v. Guiteau, 186.
30 “I did not think it was proper”: Ibid., 121.
31 As the two men ascended the steps: Ibid., 120, 186.
32 “absolutely free”: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James A. Garfield, 46.
33 “He would look in one door”: United States v. Guiteau, 141.
34 “His teeth were clenched”: “The First Shot Struck the President,” New York Times, July 17, 1881.
35 Garfield had walked only a few steps: Clark, The Murder of James A. Garfield, 58.
36 “My God! What is this?”: United States v. Guiteau, 121.
37 “The expression on [his] face”: “The First Shot Struck the President,” New York Times, July 17, 1881.
38 Despite the wave of fear: The order in which Garfield was shot—first in his arm, then in his back—is described by Mollie Garfield in her diary, July 2, 1881, Library of Congress; also quoted in Feis, Mollie Garfield in the White House, 82.
39 The force thrust Garfield forward: United States v. Guiteau, 121; “A Great Nation in Grief,” New York Times, July 3, 1881; Ridpath, The Life and Work of James A. Garfield, 594; United States v. Guiteau, 151, 156.
1 “Catch him!”: “The First Shot Struck the President,” New York Times, July 17, 1881.
2 “blanched like that of a corpse”: United States v. Guiteau, 121; The Attempted Assassination of President Garfield, 43.
3 The first man to catch Guiteau: Melanson, The Secret Service, 24. A Secret Service agent happened to be standing nearby, but did nothing to help. Later that day, he would mention in his daily report that he had noticed a strange commotion at the station that morning.
4 Officer Kearney, who had exchanged: United States v. Guiteau, 186.
5 “I truly believe”: The Attempted Assassination of President Garfield, 46.
6 “in his eyes”: United States v. Guiteau, 149, 187.
7 “I have a letter”: Ibid., 180–81.
8 The men who had arrested Guiteau: Ibid., 171, 188; “A Great Nation in Grief,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
9 “I did not expect to go through”: United States v. Guiteau, 702.
10 “You stick to me”: “A Great Nation in Grief,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
11 “haunted and haunted”: United States v. Guiteau, 601.
12 “Keep back!”: Rockwell, “Garfield’s Assassination.”
13 “was very pale”: United States v. Guiteau, 159.
14 “very hard”: Ibid.
15 Watching Smith struggle : Ibid., 141.
16 As tears streamed down White’s face: Ibid., 145.
17 Although it seemed to everyone: “The Assassination of President Garfield,” National Museum of Health and Medicine, 1; Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 7.
18 Just five minutes after the shooting: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 11.
19 Townsend’s first concern: Bliss et al., “Record of the Post-mortem Examination of the Body of President J. A. Garfield,” 2.
20 When Garfield was alert enough: “A Great Nation in Grief,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
21 After he made his initial examination: Ibid.
22 A group of men who worked: Rutkow, James A. Garfield, 84.
23 As they lifted the president: The Attempted Assassination of President Garfield, 44; Rockwell, “Garfield’s Assassination.”
24 “I think you had better telegraph to Crete”: Rockwell, “Garfield’s Assassination.”
25 “I recognized the man”: United States v. Guiteau, 122.
26 Although he was only thirty-nine: Medicine.howard.edu; encyclopedia.jrank.org.
27 Now, as he leaned over Garfield: Bliss’s notes, p. 3, archives of the National Museum of Health and Medicine
28 “the calmest man in the room”: Robert Todd Lincoln to a friend, July 28, 1881, Library of Congress.
29 “One chance in a hundred”: “Some Hope at Midnight,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
30 “My God,” he murmured: “A Great Nation in Grief,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
31 Suddenly, Lincoln decided: “Dr. Bliss’s Authority,” National Republic, July 4, 1882.
32 “an earnest, industrious boy”: Paulson, “Death of a President and His Assassin,” Journal of the History of the Neurosciences (2006): 80.
33 Years later, when he was a congressman: Kaufman, Homeopathy in America, 88–90; “Who the Doctors Are,” Washington Post, July 5, 1881.
34 In the end, Bliss could not hold up: Soper, “Dr. Willard Bliss.”
35 Although it seemed that his occupation: “How Dr. Bliss Got His Name,” New York Times, July 9, 1881. After Bliss was born, the nurses attending his mother suggested that she name her son after the man who had delivered him—Dr. Willard. Bliss’s mother, taking the suggestion perhaps a little too literally, named her child Doctor Willard Bliss.
36 While at the Armory Square Hospital: Soper, “Dr. Willard Bliss.”
37 “Cundurango!”: Ibid.
38 As soon as Bliss arrived: Bliss et al., “Record of the Post-mortem Examination of the Body of President J. A. Garfield,” 1–2.
39 “In attempting to withdraw the probe”: Ibid., 2.
40 “what appeared to be lacerated tissue”: Ibid.
41 “downward and forward”: Ibid.; Ackerman, Dark Horse.
1 Lucretia was packing her bags: Peskin, Garfield, 146.
2 “The President wishes me to say”: Harper’s Weekly 25 (1881); “A Great Nation in Grief,” New York Times, July 3, 1881; Rockwell, “Garfield’s Assassination.”
3 “Tell me the truth”: Shaw, Lucretia, 103.
4 still nursing a grudge: A few days later, Grant made a late and extremely brief appearance at a reception that was held for Garfield. He kept his wife waiting in their carriage while he stepped into the hall, shook Garfield’s hand, and quickly made his exit.
5 “I do not think he can afford”: Garfield, Diary, June 24, 1881, 4:615.
6 “so overcome with emotion”: “Sending for Mrs. Garfield,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
7 Finally, he was able to tell Lucretia: Ackerman, Dark Horse, 387.
8 Hurriedly finishing her packing: “Mrs. Garfield’s Narrow Escape,” New York Times, July 5, 1881.
9 By the time they reached the station: “Sending for Mrs. Garfield,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
10 “All along the route”: The Attempted Assassination of President Garfield, 45.
11 “Conductors passed quietly”: Comer, Harry Garfield’s First Forty Years, 57.
12 “We have not said a word”: “At the President’s House,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
13 In the second-story room: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 12.
14 “The crowd about the depot”: The Attempted Assassination of President Garfield, 43.
15 Within ten minutes of the shooting: Chicago Tribune, July 3, 1881.
16 As soon as Garfield appeared: “Removal of Mr. Garfield,” Washington Post, July 3, 1881.
17 “I think I can see now”: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 11.
18 Hoping to spare the president: Seale, The President’s House, 521.
19 “sufferings must have been intense”: Chicago Tribune, July 3, 1881.
20 “haltingly and timidly”: Stanley-Brown, “My Friend Garfield.”
21 “Oh, Mr. Secretary”: Ibid.
22 “Even in moments of greatest misery”: Ibid.
23 “temporary but adequate”: Stanley-Brown, “Memorandum Concerning Joseph Stanley-Brown’s Relations with General Garfield,” 12.
24 “full and accurate information”: Stanley-Brown, “My Friend Garfield.”
25 “miniature hospital”: Ibid.
26 “abounding in health”: Stanley-Brown, “Memorandum Concerning Joseph Stanley-Brown’s Relations with General Garfield,” 13.
27 A dozen men lifted above their heads the mattress: Seale, The President’s House, 522.
28 “The upper story is alright”: “A Great Nation in Grief,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
29 “the Pullman car”: “Mrs. Garfield’s Narrow Escape,” New York Times, July 5, 1881.
30 “That’s my wife!”: Brown, The Life and Public Services of James A. Garfield, 220.
31 “Mrs. Garfield came, frail, fatigued”: Blaine, Letters of Mrs. James G. Blaine, 211.
32 “evidently … making a strong effort”: “A Great Nation in Grief,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
33 “will not probably live”: “A Great Nation in Grief,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
34 “I am here to nurse you”: Seale, The President’s House, 522.
1 While most of the country heard: Tainter, “The Talking Machine and Some Little Known Facts in Connection with Its Early Development,” 17. (Hereafter “The Talking Machine.”)
2 “President Garfield,” the caller said: Ibid.
3 “belonged to us”: Eliza Bell to Alexander Graham Bell, July 8, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
4 “Everybody ran hither and thither”: McCabe, Our Martyred President, 535.
5 Determined to find out for himself: Tainter, “The Talking Machine,” 17.
6 “no one could venture to predict”: Bell, Upon the Electrical Experiments, 1.
7 “Nature did all she could”: Girdner, “The Death of President Garfield,” Munsey’s Magazine, 548.
8 “none the worse for it”: “What Surgeon J. F. May Says,” New York Times, July 8, 1881.
9 “had been a ‘tough’ ”: Girdner, “The Death of President Garfield,” 547.
10 “the crowds were rapidly increasing”: “A Great Nation in Grief,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
11 Inside the White House: Seale, The President’s House, 522.
12 “President Garfield was shot and killed”: Clark, The Murder of James A. Garfield, 64.
13 At the top of his list of potential competitors: “The President’s Physicians,” New York Times, July 13, 1881.
14 When Baxter arrived at the White House: Bliss, Statement of the Services Rendered by the Surgeons in the Case of the Late President Garfield, 19.
15 “Why, doctor”: Ibid., 19.
16 “He is my patient”: Bliss’s wife to her brother, August 28, 1881.
17 “I know your game”: “The President’s Physicians,” New York Times, July 13, 1881.
18 “Dear Doctor”: D. W. Bliss to doctors, July 3, 1881.
19 “He just took charge of it”: “President Garfield’s Case,” American Observer, 494.
20 “select such counsel”: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 15.
21 To his mortification, however: Clark, The Murder of James A. Garfield, 99.
22 Lucretia, in fact, had taken matters: Dr. Edson was a homeopathic physician. Like other homeopaths, her philosophy was in direct opposition to that of allopathy, the type of medicine that Bliss, Baxter, and the vast majority of American doctors then practiced. In medical school, she had been taught that “like cures like.” When treating a patient, she tried to prescribe medicines that produced the same symptoms in her patients as the diseases from which they were suffering. More important, she believed in the “law of infinitesimals”—the smaller the dose, the more effective the treatment. Although homeopathic medicine did little good, neither did it cause much harm, certainly in comparison to allopathy. In the late nineteenth century, American allopathic doctors still relied heavily on “heroic measures”—not as a last resort, but as a first step. They vigorously argued the benefits of bleeding, blistering, and scarification. Purging was also considered highly therapeutic, brought on by doses so toxic that they caused violent vomiting and, occasionally, death.
23 The stout, bespectacled doctor: Feis, Mollie Garfield in the White House, p. 70.
24 “Mrs. Dr. Edson”: Balston, Life of President Garfield, Supplementary Chapter by Edson, 612.
25 Dr. Silas Boynton: Garfield had an especially high regard for Boynton because the doctor had “burst the narrow barriers of homeopathy.”
26 “Please to have you come”: Deppisch, “Homeopathic Medicine and Presidential Health,” 6.
27 “I had a taste of what has been”: Pasteur and Lister, Germ Theory and Its Applications to Medicine, 144.
28 “all evil consequences”: Bankston, 35.
29 “In order to successfully practice”: Clark, The Murder of James A. Garfield, 72.
30 “Judging the future by the past”: Ibid.
31 “good old surgical stink”: Ibid., 70; Guthrie, From Witchcraft to Antisepsis, 32.
32 Some physicians felt that Lister’s: Rutkow, James A. Garfield, 110.
33 They preferred, moreover: Haller, American Medicine in Transition, 1840–1910, ix.
34 Even those doctors willing to try: Rothstein, American Physicians in the Nineteenth Century, 256; Clark, The Murder of James A. Garfield, 73.
35 “had the physician in charge abstained”: Gerster, Recollections of a New York Surgeon, 206.
36 “Do not allow probing”: Dr. E. L. Patee to Lucretia Garfield, July 3, 1881, James A. Garfield Papers, Library of Congress. Patee understood gunshot wounds as well as any of the doctors circling the White House, and better than most. Just a few years after graduating from Ohio’s Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, which he had attended at the same time as Garfield, and the Starling Medical College in Columbus, Patee had moved to western Kansas. A devoted abolitionist, he had been among the first to enlist in the Union Army at the start of the Civil War. During the war, he had established a hospital on the front lines and, afterward, had devoted much of his time to treating the freed slaves who flooded into Kansas.
37 “old men”: Girdner, “The Death of President Garfield,” Munsey Magazine, 547.
38 Both men had attended Lister’s talk: Paulson, “Death of a President and His Assassin,” 81.
39 “these gentlemen used no buttons”: Godlee, Lord Lister, 391.
40 “would in many cases sacrifice”: Pasteur and Lister, Germ Theory and Its Applications to Medicine, 136.
41 “bear the severest scrutiny”: “Dr. Hamilton Much Pleased,” New York Times, July 6, 1881.
42 “I think that we have”: “A Medical View of the Case,” New York Times, July 8, 1881.
43 As Bliss spoke, smoke from his cigar: “Still Brighter Prospects,” New York Times, July 8, 1881.
44 “the most admirable patient”: “A Medical View of the Case,” New York Times, July 8, 1881.
45 “If I can’t save him”: Quoted in Ackerman, Dark Horse, 403.
46 “I cannot possibly persuade him to sit”: Mabel Bell to her mother, July 8, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
47 “like a Chinese lantern”: Bell, Upon the Electrical Experiments, 47.
48 Deciding to run a few quick tests: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 344; Tainter, “The Talking Machine,” 18.
49 In a simplistic way, the technique anticipated: In November 1895, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen took an X-ray of his wife’s hand, which showed her bones and wedding ring.
50 The problem was that: Bell, Upon the Electrical Experiments, 47–48.
51 “returned vividly to my mind”: Ibid., 4.
52 “The currents induced”: Ibid., 2–3.
53 “When a position of silence”: Ibid., 3.
54 “brooding over the problem”: Ibid., 4.
55 “great personal convenience”: Ibid.
56 “received an urgent request”: Tainter, “The Talking Machine,” 18.
1 “Information had reached them”: “Guiteau in Jail,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
2 “There were many who felt”: “A Cloud upon the Holiday,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
3 “While it seems incredible”: Ibid.
4 “roar of indignation”: “Brooklyn Much Disturbed,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
5 Rumors spread that a group: “Bulletins Still Eagerly Watched,” New York Tribune, July 6, 1881, cited in Menke, “Media in America,” 652.
6 On the top floor: Kalush, The Secret Life of Houdini, 177.
7 “a particular friend”: “A Talk with the Assassin,” New York Times, July 5, 1881.
8 Soon after settling into his cell: “A Great Nation in Grief,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
9 “lobbying like any henchman”: Ackerman, Dark Horse, 363.
10 As he scanned the message: “Garfield Shot,” Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, July 2, 1881.
11 Across the street, the sidewalk: “Seeking for the Latest News,” New York Times, July 4, 1881.
12 As Conkling and Arthur entered the hotel: “At the Fifth Avenue Hotel,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
13 “More than one excited man”: Ibid.
14 So suffocatingly crowded: Ibid.
15 By the time Conkling had his hands: Chicago Tribune, July 3, 1881.
16 “great grief and sympathy”: Ackerman, Dark Horse, 384–85.
17 “Chet Arthur?”: Whitcomb and Whitcomb, Real Life at the White House, 181.
18 “simple vanity”: Reeves, Gentleman Boss, 5.
19 Arthur was also widely known: Karabell, Chester Alan Arthur, 30.
20 “I do not think he knows anything”: Harriet S. Blaine and Beale, Letters of Mrs. James G. Blaine, 309.
21 “There is no place in which the powers of mischief”: Quoted in Reeves, Gentleman Boss, 241.
22 “a statesman and a thorough-bred gentleman”: “Seeking for the Latest News,” New York Times, July 4, 1881.
23 “Republicans and Democrats alike”: “A Cloud Upon the Holiday,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
24 “Arthur for President!”: Williams, Diary and Letters of Rutherford B. Hayes, 23.
25 “There is a theory”: “Guiteau in Jail,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
26 “I am a Stalwart”: “A Great Nation in Grief,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
27 “This crime is as logically and legitimately”: Cleveland Herald, July 3, 1881.
28 “when a child”: Quoted in Chidsey, The Gentleman from New York, 354.
29 “Men go around with clenched teeth”: Quoted in Ackerman, Dark Horse, 385.
30 In a New York prison, two inmates: New York Times, September 16, 1881.
31 “While there is no intimation”: “Thunderbolt at Albany,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
32 “that the ex-Senator had asked”: “The Scenes Up Town,” New York Times, July 5, 1881.
33 “Gens: We will hang”: Platt, The Autobiography of Thomas Collier Platt, 163.
1 As his train pulled into the station: Bell to Mabel Bell, July 17, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
2 “Everywhere people go about”: “A Cloud Upon the Holiday,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
3 Even the Fourth of July celebrations: Celebrations had also been canceled in nearly every other city in the nation.
4 “Men looked eagerly to the flag-pole”: “The Events of Yesterday,” New York Times, July 5, 1881.
5 “down upon the Executive Mansion”: Ibid.
6 “To Mrs. Garfield, a slight token”: Bell to Mabel Bell, July 17, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
7 Although his temperature had fallen slightly: Doctors’ notes, July 14, 1881, National Museum of Health and Medicine.
8 “severe lancinating”: Ibid., July 3, 1881.
9 “tiger’s claws”: “At the Patient’s Bedside,” New York Times, July 5, 1881.
10 More difficult for Garfield to deny: Doctors’ notes, July 4, 1881, National Museum of Health and Medicine.
11 Garfield had for years suffered: Garfield, Diary, June 15–July 19, 1875, 3:85.
12 Finally, a doctor told him: Ibid., May 24, 1875, 3:85.
13 Garfield had avoided such drastic: Peskin, Garfield, 433.
14 He received a wide variety of rich foods: Bliss’s notes, 11, National Museum of Health and Medicine.
15 “He was nauseated”: Quoted in Clark, The Murder of James A. Garfield, 89.
16 “No sick or injured person”: Gaw, A Time to Heal, 8.
17 “Patients, no matter how critical”: Ibid.
18 The structure had been built into sloping ground: Seale, The President’s House, 536.
19 “packed with vermin”: Clark, The Murder of James A. Garfield, 80.
20 “sanitary requirements of a safe dwelling”: “Condition of the White House,” New York Times, September 7, 1881.
21 The plumbing system had been built: Seale, The President’s House, 536.
22 “pest house”: Feis, Mollie Garfield in the White House, 74.
23 “The old White House is unfit”: Quoted in Clark, The Murder of James A. Garfield, 80.
24 “notoriously unhealthy”: Hoogenboom, Rutherford B. Hayes, 469.
25 “greatly influenced by the miasma”: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 578.
26 Four servants in the White House: Mackenzie, Alexander Graham Bell, 236.
27 In a desperate effort to ward off malaria : Paulson, “Death of a President and His Assassin,” 83; Deppisch, “Homeopathic Medicine and Presidential Health,” 3.
28 “You can’t imagine anything so vile”: Harriet S. Blaine and Beale, Letters of Mrs. James G. Blaine, 229.
29 “Scarcely a breath of air”: “Another Weary Night Watch,” New York Times, July 6, 1881.
30 “Sitting to day on my piazza”: Stephen Upson to Lucretia Garfield, July 3, 1881.
31 Others suggested hanging sheets: Letters to Lucretia Garfield, Library of Congress, Garfield papers.
32 Finally, a corps of engineers: Reports of Officers of the Navy: Ventilating and Cooling of Executive Mansion, 4. Nine years later, Willis Haviland Carrier designed the first system for controlling not only temperature, but also humidity.
33 In the president’s office: Telegram from Joseph Stanley Brown to R. J. Jennings, the owner of a company in Baltimore that had a cooling device, quoted in Clark, The Murder of James A. Garfield, 83.
34 Although the system worked: Seale, The President’s House, 523–24. “They found some kind of compressed air machine,” Garfield’s fourteen-year-old daughter, Mollie, complained in her diary, “& it made a horrible noise when it became full of air.” James A. Garfield Papers, Library of Congress.
35 “cool, dry, and ample”: Seale, The President’s House, 524.
36 “wonderfully patient sufferer”: Paulson, “Death of a President and His Assassin,” 79.
37 “never approached him”: Bliss, “The Story of President Garfield’s Illness,” 301.
38 “Thank you, gentlemen”: Rockwell, “From Mentor to Elberon,” Century Magazine, 437.
39 “witty, and quick at repartee”: Ibid.
40 “The vein of his conversation”: “A Great Nation in Grief,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
41 “I do not believe that”: “At the Patient’s Bedside,” New York Times, July 5, 1881.
42 Although Garfield rarely mentioned: Rockwell, “From Mentor to Elberon,” Century Magazine.
43 “What motive do you think”: “A Great Nation in Grief,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
1 “You were not made free merely”: “Colored Men Visit Garfield,” New York Times, October 21, 1880.
2 “the high privilege and sacred duty”: Garfield, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1881.
3 “give the South, as rapidly as possible”: De Santis, “President Garfield and the ‘Solid South,’ ” 449.
4 “felt, as they had not felt before”: “Southern Sympathy,” New York Times, July 20, 1881.
5 “united, as if by magic”: Bundy, The Nation’s Hero, in Memoriam, 242–43.
6 “the whole Nation kin”: “Jefferson Davis on Guiteau’s Crime,” New York Times, July 16, 1881.
7 “I felt lighthearted and merry”: United States v. Guiteau, 601.
8 “His vanity is literally nauseating”: Hayes and Hayes, A Complete History, 405–6.
9 “He spoke with deliberation”: Ibid.
10 “He objected strenuously”: Ibid., 406.
11 “I want you to be sure”: Ibid., 499.
12 “I don’t want to appear strained”: Quoted in Ackerman, Dark Horse, 406.
13 Before returning to his cell: Clark, The Murder of James A. Garfield, 65.
14 He believed that he would be released: Rosenberg, The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, p. 46.
15 “by the hundreds”: Clark, The Murder of James A. Garfield, 91.
16 “a conviction would shock the public”: United States v. Guiteau, 2246.
17 So carefree was Guiteau: Rosenberg, The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, 45.
18 “I am looking for a wife”: Hayes and Hayes, A Complete History, 451.
19 “For twenty years, I have had an idea”: Hayes and Hayes, A Complete History, 452.
20 He was in contact with everyone: Mackenzie, Alexander Graham Bell, 235.
21 “Alec says he telegraphed”: Mabel Bell to her mother, July 20, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
22 At this point in his experiments: Bell, Upon the Electrical Experiments, 15.
23 He had adjusted the coils’ size: Ibid., 8–11.
24 Most important, he had decided to borrow: Ibid., 5.
25 Bell and Tainter had already begun testing: Mackenzie, Alexander Graham Bell, 236.
26 Seven years earlier, while working: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 121.
27 “more nearly approximate”: Bell to Mabel Bell, July 17, 1881, Bell Family Papers; Mackenzie, Alexander Graham Bell, 236.
28 On July 20, as promised: Bell, “Volta Lab Notes,” July 19, 1881.
29 Bliss, who had brought for the inventor: Clark, The Murder of James A. Garfield, 86. The bullets are in the collection of the National Museum of American History.
30 “Ball can certainly be located”: Bell, “Volta Lab Notes,” July 9, 1881.
31 “If people would only make their bullets”: Bell, Upon the Electrical Experiments, 46.
32 In its earliest form, the induction balance: Ibid., 7, 11.
33 Always a serious young man: Grosvenor and Wesson, Alexander Graham Bell, 62.
34 The Volta Laboratory, moreover, was far: Gray, Reluctant Genius, 217.
35 So unhealthy was the laboratory: Mabel Bell to Eliza Bell, June 23, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
36 “headache has taken root”: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 201.
37 “Alec says he would rather die”: Mabel Bell to Eliza Bell, June 23, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
38 “epistolary silence”: Bell to Mabel Bell, July 26, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
39 “Alec says he is well and bearing”: Mabel Bell to her mother, July 20, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
40 “I want to know how you are personally”: Mabel Bell to Alexander Graham Bell, July 16, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
1 “I hope the dangers are nearly passed”: Lucretia Garfield to Mrs. Logan, July 14, 1881.
2 Although she continued to spend: Feis, Mollie Garfield in the White House, 88.
3 “I hope I shall not disappoint you”: Shaw, Lucretia, 91.
4 “Blundered!”: Lucretia, Diary, April 20, 1881, in Garfield, Diary, 641, 4:641.
5 “In these few weeks of trial and anxiety”: “The President’s Wife,” New York Times, Aug. 28, 1881.
6 “She must be a pretty brave woman”: Mabel Bell to Alexander Graham Bell, July 25, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
7 “His gradual progress”: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 31.
8 “day of thanksgiving for the recovery”: “Thanksgiving for the President,” New York Times, July 13, 1881.
9 “You keep heart”: “A Typical American Family,” New York Times, July 25, 1881.
10 “Every passage of his bowels”: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 18.
11 “rarely spoke of his condition”: Ibid., 14.
12 His only link to the outside world: “Still Brighter Prospects,” New York Times, July 8, 1881.
13 “Strangulatus pro Republica”: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield, 2:1193.
14 “There was never a moment”: Rockwell, “From Mentor to Elberon.”
15 Finally, nearly a month after the shooting: Harriet S. Blaine and Beale, Letters of Mrs. James G. Blaine, p. 220.
16 “But I move the diaphragm”: “Still Brighter Prospects,” New York Times, July 8, 1881.
17 “I won’t talk to you”: “At the Patient’s Bedside,” New York Times, July 5, 1881.
18 Friends and family members in Ohio: “The Feeling in Cleveland,” New York Times, July 4, 1881.
19 “Everywhere,” one reporter wrote, “hope and confidence”: “The President’s Fight for Life,” New York Times, July 7, 1881.
20 “out of danger”: Harriet S. Blaine and Beale, Letters of Mrs. James G. Blaine, 221.
21 “large quantity”: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 38–39.
22 “neither ashamed nor afraid”: Fisher, Joseph Lister, 130.
23 “was looking very well”: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 39.
24 “he is feverish”: Ibid., 40.
25 “drenched with a profuse perspiration”: Ibid., 41.
26 “the President bore”: “Complete Medical Record of President Garfield’s Case Containing All of the Official Bulletins,” 25–26.
27 He vomited repeatedly: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 43.
28 “weak solution of car bolic [sic] acid”: Ibid., 42.
29 Unbeknownst to his doctors: Autopsy of James A. Garfield, 4.
30 An enormous cavity: Ibid., 3.
31 “We received every morning”: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 23.
32 One man sent the doctors plans: Ibid.
33 A man in Maryland wrote to Bliss: Prichard and Herring, “The Problem of the President’s Bullet,” Surgery, Gynecology, and Obstetrics, 2 (May 1951), 625–33.
34 Although Bliss admitted: Ibid., 626.
35 “had a suspicion”: Ibid., 627.
36 “bullet has pierced the liver”: “A Great Nation in Grief,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
37 At least one doctor in Washington: Baker, President Garfield’s Case, 1–8.
38 Baker even drew up a diagram: Ibid.
39 “I felt,” he would later explain, “that it was improper”: Quoted in Rutkow, James A. Garfield, 117.
40 “These bulletins were often the subject”: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 19.
41 “If the slightest unfavorable symptom”: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 19.
42 “Your arrival and ‘Professor’ Tainter’s”: Mabel Bell to Alexander Graham Bell, July 16, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
43 “the experiment will be watched”: “Search for the Pistol Ball,” Washington Post, July 15, 1881.
44 “Ordinary telegrams I presume”: Bell to Mabel Bell, July 26, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
45 Since he had agreed to a brief interview: Bell, “Volta Lab Notes,” July 18, 1881.
46 “carried a bullet in his body”: Bell, Upon the Electrical Experiments, 18.
47 “sonorous spot”: Bell to D. W. Bliss, July 23, 1881, quoted in Bell, Upon the Electrical Experiments, 54.
48 “Will you do us the favor”: D. W. Bliss to Alexander Graham Bell, July 26, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
49 “tired, ill, dispirited”: Bell to Mabel Bell, July 26, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
50 If Bell added a condenser: What was then known as a condenser is today called a capacitor.
51 Breaking open the instrument: Bell to Mabel Bell, July 26, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
52 Not only did it improve the sound: Bell, Upon the Electrical Experiments, 20.
53 Bell could now detect a bullet: Bell, Upon the Electrical Experiments, 16–20; Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 345.
54 “trial of the apparatus”: Bell to Mabel Bell, July 26, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
55 “Mr. Garfield himself is reported”: Mabel Bell to her mother, July 17, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
56 “so calm and grand”: Bell to Mabel Bell, July 26, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
57 “the look of a man”: Ibid.
58 Frantically, Bell tried everything: Bell, Upon the Electrical Experiments, 55.
59 The sound, however, was distracting: Bell to Mabel Bell, July 26, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
60 Taking in the long wires: Mackenzie, Alexander Graham Bell, 237.
61 “His head was so buried”: Bell to Mabel Bell, July 26, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
62 After carefully pulling: Ibid.
63 As everyone in the room: Ibid.
64 “sharp and sudden reinforcement”: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 346.
65 Finally, with the president quickly tiring: Bell, Upon the Electrical Experiments, 55.
66 “I feel woefully disappointed”: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 346.
67 Returning to his laboratory: Bell, Upon the Electrical Experiments, 55.
68 “Private and confidential”: Bell to Mabel Bell, July 26, 1881, Bell Family Papers.