A relapse.--Cooling Apparatus at the White House--The
President writes a Letter to his Mother.--Evidences of
Blood-Poisoning.--Symptoms of Malaria.--Removal to Long
Branch.--Preparation for the Journey.--Incidents by the way.
On the morning of the twenty-third of July there came a relapse. While
the physicians were examining and dressing his wounds, the President
experienced a slight rigor, followed by an increase of febrile symptoms.
This was evidently owing to an interruption of the flow of pus, and, on
the twenty-fourth, an operation was performed upon the cavity, by which
the patient was relieved.
The intense heat of those July days was very debilitating, and a variety
of ingenious plans were tried to lower the temperature in the sufferer's
room. The most successful experiment was that of Mr. Dorsay's, which was
based on the system used in cooling the air in mines. It required
considerable machinery, but by its means the temperature of the room was
reduced to seventy-five degrees. The system is as follows: A stationary
engine is first employed to compress the air which, when crowded into
less space, gives out a large amount of heat. This is carried away by
running water, and as soon as the air is again set free, it becomes as
cool by expansion as it had before been heated by compression.
On the 27th of July, a piece of the fractured rib was removed; the
President was again able to take nourishing food, the fever subsided,
and all the bulletins began to assume a cheerful tone.
And so the long, long days passed by, with frequent alternations of hope
and fear. On the 11th of August the President asked for pen and paper
that he might write a letter.
"Through all those weary weeks of pain,
With death's dark angel nigh,
But once to grasp the accustomed pen
The trembling fingers try.
"Those brave words from the strong man bowed,
Courageously death meeting,
To whom amid the courtly crowd
Of great ones sending greeting?
"The mother-bosom beat afar--
To her that tender letter;
To her--through life his guiding star--
He writes he's 'getting better.'"
By the middle of August it was evident that the President was suffering
from pyaemia, or blood-poisoning. The swollen parotid gland occasioned
fresh solicitude, and the stomach refused to perform its ordinary
functions. Nourishing enemeta were then administered with excellent
results, and the lancing of the parotid-swelling afforded temporary
relief.
The sufferer longed for a change of air; the malarial atmosphere
surrounding the White House was a constant drawback to his recovery, and
early in September the physicians decided to remove him to Long Branch.
The sixth day of the month was appointed for the removal, and every
possible precaution was taken to make the journey as easy as possible.
The bed, and the train in general, were inspected the day before by
Surgeon-General Barnes and Drs. Bliss and Agnew. The train was run out
to Benning's Bridge, five miles from Washington, and the surgeons
thoroughly tested the couch. They said that it was perfect, and that no
better arrangement could have been made for the President's journey. In
the test of speed the doctors were surprised to find that there was
notably less motion and jar at forty miles than at thirty.
The express wagon which was to convey the President to the depot, was in
waiting at the front entrance to the Executive Mansion all night. It was
a new vehicle, and the springs being well oiled, could not impart much
jarring to the bed on which the President would lie.
When the track was being laid through Elberon, on which he was to be
taken to the Francklyn cottage as a last hope, the surveyor apologized
to a lady whose garden it laid waste.
"Your flowers have required the labor of many summers, madam, and we
shall ruin them," he said.
"O sir!" she cried, "I am willing you should ruin my house--all I have,
if it would help to save him!"
There was to be a double departure from the White House. The President's
sons, Harry and James, were to start for Williams College, and shortly
before ten o'clock on the evening of the fifth, they bade their father
good-by, and took leave of their mother who was hopeful and courageous,
believing the journey to Long Branch would save her husband's life.
Their countenances were grave, and the passers-by, as they respectfully
made way for them, could not but feel that the two young men were just
about to start upon a career as, possibly, their distinguished father
was about to end one.
Private Secretary Brown gives the following account of the trip to Long
Branch: "Upon leaving the Executive Mansion the President appeared to
enjoy the scenery and looked around inquiringly. All the way from the
White House to the depot the President was very anxious to observe
everything, and in this he was not prevented. He experienced little or
no disturbance in being transferred from the vehicle to the car, and his
pulse, although slightly accelerated, reaching about 115, fell to about
106 before the train started, and shortly afterward fell to 104 and
again to 102. The first stop of the train was made at Patapsco, at which
point the parotid gland was dressed. At half-past nine o'clock the
President's pulse was 108 and of good character. At that hour three
ounces of beef extract were administered. Between Philadelphia and
Monmouth Junction, the special train made several miles at the rate of
seventy miles per hour. Bay View, this side of Baltimore, was reached at
8.05, and a brief stop was made to enable the surgeons to make the
morning dressing of the wound. The wound was found to have suffered no
derangement by the travel. The dressing was soon accomplished, and the
train, after leaving Bay View, was run at the rate of about fifty miles
per hour. The track in this locality is very straight, and in excellent
condition, and though the speed was at times greater than fifty miles
per hour, the vibration of the President's bed, it is said, was no more
than had the train been moving twenty-five miles per hour. The attending
surgeons feel very much gratified with the manner in which the removal
was conducted, and are generally of the opinion that, with the
exception of being slightly fatigued, the President bore the journey
exceedingly well."
"This is a great journey, Crete," he said to his wife, as the train
rushed on at lightning speed. "Let her go! The faster the better," he
added, when the doctors expressed their fears that the rapid motion of
the engine would tire him.
"Don't put down the curtain! I want to see the people! Let them look
in!" he exclaimed, as he caught a glimpse of the eager, anxious crowds
at the different stations.
One of the Boston dailies wrote as follows--
"In the preparations for the trip the great popular solicitude for the
well-being of the President infected even soulless railroad
corporations, as they are sometimes called, so that the management of
the lines over which he had to pass could not do too much to reduce the
fatigue or other injurious effect of the jaunt. It is a credit to our
common humanity, that everybody in any way connected with this transfer
of the President, from the mechanic to the railroad director, required
no spur but his own feelings to exert himself to the utmost for the
safety and comfort of him who had suffered so terribly, and evinced such
grand qualities under the most adverse circumstances. No railroad train
was ever the burden of so much anxious, prayerful solicitation as that
conveying the President to his destination. To change and apply one of
General Garfield's own expressions, the great heart of the nation must
have nobly sustained the presidential patient as he sped on his way to a
locality where, it is hoped, the recuperating processes of nature will
place him on the high road to convalescence.
"Our despatches note the arrival of the presidential train at different
points, and the manner in which the patient bore the ride. As may well
be imagined, the people who gathered in Washington to see him on board
the train could not help remarking his generally emaciated appearance,
but he was sufficiently strong to turn upon his side and wave his adieus
to the crowd. The fortitude and will of the President are as surprising
as the many unusual episodes of his life."