Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard

In this book Millard who is not a well known biographer tackles the subject of the assassination of James Garfield. Millard who earlier wrote about Teddy Roosevelt tells us of the events leading up to the election of Garfield and then his shooting by a derganged office seeker named Charles Guiteau. The story does not end with the shooting, Garfield lived over two months with the wound until he died of infection.

The book also introduces us to Alexander Graham Bell. In 1876 Bell introduces the World to the telephone but he was a constant inventor. When Garfield was shot, what we know now, was that it was his medical treatment was the cause of his death. Guiteau in his trial claimed that while he shot Garfield it was his medical treatment that killed him. He was correct. The jury did not buy this, nor did they buy the insanity defense.

By all accounts Garfield was a good man of strong character who never really got a chance go govern. His shooting united the country both North and South for perhaps the first time since the end of the war. His major accomplishment was dispensing with Roscoe Conkling, the Senator from New York, the king of patronage. Interestingly with his death Conkling's protege the Vice President Chester Arthur, placed on the ticket only to placate the Stalwart wing of the party, became a man beyond what was expected of him. He pushed Conkling away and became his own man and tried to fulfill Garfield's policies.

The medical treatment of Garfield was not only bad, it was bad ignoring the methods of Joseph Lister a doctor who was attempting to teach antiseptic methods and surgery, methods that if followed would have inevitably led to Garfield's surviving.

Through it all Garfield was stoic and thoughtful. The second President killed in a fifteen year span and yet the country survived and soon prospered.