#AmReading – Destiny of the Republic

Destiny of the Republic – A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard (2011) – James A. Garfield was popular and respected leader elected President of the United States, much against his will. There were high hopes for this self-made man, and the change he could bring to the country. Instead, he is remembered (when remembered at all) as the second assassinated U.S. President. The events that led to his death, including the astounding decisions of his doctors, unfold brilliantly here.

The post-Civil War presidencies in the United States are not some of our finest moments.  Andrew Johnson impeached, Ulysses Grant’s administration plagued by scandal, and Rutherford Hayes, came to the office on the tails of a controversial deal on the Electoral College and the end of Reconstruction. In 1881, it looked like that would change. James A. Garfield was a candidate with a reputation that made him popular in both the North and the South. A compromise candidate at the Republican convention, he won a narrow victory in the Presidential election. In the short time that he served, Garfield made inroads on one of the great issues of the day, civil service reform. Instead of positions in government filled with political favorites, Garfield moved to a meritocracy based system.

But he would only serve six and a half months before dying from the results of an assassin’s bullet. That’s where the story gets interesting.

If you remember Garfield at all, you may remember Charles Guiteau, his assassin. That’s the way it’s always presented, Guiteau killed Garfield. Here Candice Millard shows that if the President had received even simple, reasonable medical care, Garfield would have lived. But the appalling arrogance and incompetence that centered on Doctor Willard Bliss killed the President of the United States. Bliss (whose first name was Doctor) was, like most American doctors of the time, one who did not believe that germs caused infection.  Consequently, they rejected the findings of the British surgeon Joseph Lister, who pioneered antiseptic surgery. With that rejection went any chance of the patient’s survival.

Millard does a wonderful job of telling the stories the form the history. Garfield’s story makes me wonder about how much the nation lost by not seeing his term(s) through to the conclusion. The madness of Guiteau makes him as sympathetic as is possible, given the nature of the horror he committed. The anger and disgust at what passed for the “finest medical minds” in our country at the time in the story of Lister, Bliss and the other doctors around the President. And the strange, doomed attempt by Alexander Graham Bell to change the course of the story offers a melancholy aspect to it all.

This is the kind of history I love. Carefully researched, detailed storytelling that draws the reader into the lives and actions under examination. I looked forward to any opportunity I had to keep reading this book. I came away happy as a reader and better educated as a citizen. Not a bad day’s work for a writer.

Rating – **** Recommended