The Forgotten President
We know about the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy.
We may know that the assassination of William McKinley in 1901 elevated “that damned cowboy,” Theodore Roosevelt, to the Presidency.
But who knows about the fourth President to be assassinated, James A. Garfield?
A new Netflix series, Death by Lightning, reintroduces us to this remarkable political figure.
Garfield was a Civil War hero and an Ohio Congressman, the only sitting member of the U.S. House ever elected to the White House.
He was born in poverty in a log cabin. His father died when he was two.
Garfield lifted himself up through education, reading and study. He became a preacher, a lawyer and a university president.
While in Congress, he developed a proof for the Pythagorean theorem.
He didn’t run for President. He gave the nominating speech for another candidate at the bitterly divided 1880 Republican National Convention.
His speech so stirred delegates that, on the 36th ballot, they nominated a reluctant Garfield.
In 1881, just four months after he was sworn in, he was shot in the back by a delusional office-seeker at the Washington train station.
He clung to life for more than two months. In the end, his death came at the hands of the doctors who treated him, not the assassin’s bullet.
His doctors didn’t believe in germs. Their repeating probing for the bullet caused massive sepsis. An autopsy found that the bullet wound wouldn’t have been fatal if simply left inside him.
As President, Garfield stood up for the rights of freed slaves, including their right to vote.
He fought the patronage, corruption and spoils system that infested the day’s politics – and his own party.
One product of that system was Vice President Chester Alan Arthur, who had been forced on Garfield at the convention.
But Arthur, stricken by the President’s murder, would pass the nation’s first civil-service reform law. He stepped down after his one unelected term.
You wonder what Garfield might have achieved if he had served his full term – or more.
The series prompted me to read the book on which it’s based, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard.
It’s refreshing to read about a smart and honest President.
Garfield image: National Portrait Gallery/Smithsonian Institution
The Forgotten President
We know about the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy.
We may know that the assassination of William McKinley in 1901 elevated “that damned cowboy,” Theodore Roosevelt, to the Presidency.
But who knows about the fourth President to be assassinated, James A. Garfield?
A new Netflix series, Death by Lightning, reintroduces us to this remarkable political figure.
Garfield was a Civil War hero and an Ohio Congressman, the only sitting member of the U.S. House ever elected to the White House.
He was born in poverty in a log cabin. His father died when he was two.
Garfield lifted himself up through education, reading and study. He became a preacher, a lawyer and a university president.
While in Congress, he developed a proof for the Pythagorean theorem.
He didn’t run for President. He gave the nominating speech for another candidate at the bitterly divided 1880 Republican National Convention.
His speech so stirred delegates that, on the 36th ballot, they nominated a reluctant Garfield.
In 1881, just four months after he was sworn in, he was shot in the back by a delusional office-seeker at the Washington train station.
He clung to life for more than two months. In the end, his death came at the hands of the doctors who treated him, not the assassin’s bullet.
His doctors didn’t believe in germs. Their repeating probing for the bullet caused massive sepsis. An autopsy found that the bullet wound wouldn’t have been fatal if simply left inside him.
As President, Garfield stood up for the rights of freed slaves, including their right to vote.
He fought the patronage, corruption and spoils system that infested the day’s politics – and his own party.
One product of that system was Vice President Chester Alan Arthur, who had been forced on Garfield at the convention.
But Arthur, stricken by the President’s murder, would pass the nation’s first civil-service reform law. He stepped down after his one unelected term.
You wonder what Garfield might have achieved if he had served his full term – or more.
The series prompted me to read the book on which it’s based, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard.
It’s refreshing to read about a smart and honest President.
Garfield image: National Portrait Gallery/Smithsonian Institution