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[Illustration: _J. A. Garfield_]
[Illustration:
MRS. JAMES A. GARFIELD.
_Eng^d by H B Hall & Sons New York._
]
_MEMORIAL EDITION._
THE
LIFE AND WORK
OF
JAMES A. GARFIELD,
TWENTIETH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:
EMBRACING
AN ACCOUNT OF THE SCENES AND INCIDENTS OF HIS BOYHOOD; THE STRUGGLES OF
HIS YOUTH; THE MIGHT OF HIS EARLY MANHOOD; HIS VALOR AS A SOLDIER; HIS
CAREER AS A STATESMAN; HIS ELECTION TO THE PRESIDENCY;
AND
THE TRAGIC STORY OF HIS DEATH.
BY
JOHN CLARK RIDPATH, LL. D.,
AUTHOR OF A POPULAR HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES; A GRAMMAR-SCHOOL
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES; AN INDUCTIVE GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE, ETC.
COPIOUSLY ILLUSTRATED.
P. W. ZIEGLER & CO.,
PHILADELPHIA AND CHICAGO.
1881.
COPYRIGHTED, 1881, BY J. T. JONES.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREFACE.
Dean Swift describes the tomb as a place where savage enmity can rend
the heart no more. Here, in the ominous shadow of the cypress, the
faults and foibles of life are forgotten, and the imagination builds a
shining pathway to the stars. Ascending this with rapid flight, the
great dead is transfigured as he rises; the clouds close around him,
and, in the twinkling of an eye, he is set afar on the heights with
Miltiades and Alexander.
The tendency to the deification of men is strongest when a sudden
eclipse falls athwart the disk of a great life at noontide. The pall of
gloom sweeps swiftly across the landscape, and the beholder, feeling the
chill of the darkness, mistakes it for the death of nature. So it was
three hundred years ago when the silent Prince of Orange, the founder of
Dutch independence, was smitten down in Delft. So it was when the
peerless Lincoln fell. So it is when Garfield dies by the bullet of an
assassin.
No doubt this man is glorified by his shameful and causeless death. The
contrast between his life and his death is indeed the very irony of
fate. On the popular imagination he is borne away to Washington and
Lincoln. He is canonized—the American people will have it so.
In due season fervor will subside. The keen indignation and poignant
sorrow of this great and sensitive citizenship will at length give place
to other emotions. The murdered Garfield will then pass through an
ordeal more trying than any of his life. He will be coolly measured and
his stature ascertained by those inexorable laws which determine the
rank and place of both living and dead. No doubt he will suffer loss;
but there is of James A. Garfield a residuum of greatness—
Which shall tire
Torture and Time, and breathe though he expire;
Something unearthly which we deem not of,
Like the remembered tone of a mute lyre,—
And this residuum of greatness, whatever it shall be, will constitute
the Garfield of the future—the Garfield of history.
For the present there will be—there can but be—a blending of the real
and the ideal. The glamour of the apotheosis will dazzle the vision of
those who witnessed it. It is enough, therefore, that the narrative of
to-day shall be such as befits the universal sentiment. The biographer
of the future may weigh with more critical exactitude the weakness
against the greatness, and poise in a more delicate balance the evil
against the good.
The following pages embody an effort to present, in fair proportion, THE
LIFE AND WORK OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. Such sources of information as are
at present accessible have been faithfully consulted; and it is
sincerely hoped that the outline here given of the personal and public
career of the illustrious dead, will be found true to the life. As far
as practicable in the following pages, the purposes and character of
President Garfield will be determined from his own words. His apothegms
and sayings, not a few, and his public papers and speeches have alike
contributed their wealth to the better parts of the volume. The story of
the President’s wounding and death has been gathered from the abundant
sources—official and semi-official—of the journals and magazines of the
day. It is hoped that the narrative, as a whole, will not be found
deficient in interest, or unworthy of the subject.
This preface would be incomplete if failure should be made to mention
the invaluable and extensive service rendered the author in the
preparation of the work, by Messrs. AUGUSTUS L. MASON, NATHANIEL P.
CONREY, and LEONARD BARNEY, to whose industry and discriminating taste
much of whatever merit the book contains, must be accredited. And with
this acknowledgment should be coupled a like recognition of the spirit
of THE PUBLISHERS, who, with their accustomed liberality, have spared no
pains to illustrate the work in a manner befitting the subject. May all
who read these pages find in them as full a measure of profit as the
author has found of pleasure in their preparation.
J. C. R.
INDIANA ASBURY UNIVERSITY,
_November, 1881_.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
BIRTH AND ANCESTRY.
PAGES
“Unto us a child is born.”—A lowly home in the wilderness.—Law
of heredity.—The New England stock.—The Garfields.—The
Ballous.—Trend of the boy mind.—The father’s death.—Story of
the cause.—The widow’s struggle.—Life in the Garfield
cabin.—Earliest labor.—First lessons.—The Garfield
family.—Boyhood traits.—The growing stalk. 11–27
CHAPTER II.
THE STRUGGLE OF BOYHOOD.
A Western boy of twelve.—Workland and dreamland.—A carpenter in
embryo.—Summer day and winter day.—The door of bookland
opens.—What he saw.—A doubtful farmer.—Possibly something
else.—A giant of sixteen.—The stage of brigandage.—Pirate or
President?—Meanwhile a wood-chopper.—The sea-vision
again.—The great deep takes the form of a canal.—Venus:
otherwise, the _Evening Star_.—The glory of the
tow-path.—Navigation and pugilism.—Diving for pearls.—Leaves
the sea.—The goblin that shakes us all.—Politics, religion,
and grammar.—Off to school.—A place called Chester.—Builds a
barn.—And then teaches a school.—More school.—Joins
church.—Credo.—Possible sweetheart.—Learns elocution.—Hiram
rises to view.—An academic course of study.—What about
college?—Bethany, maybe.—Decides against it.—Why.—Knocks at
the door of Williams. 28–58
CHAPTER III.
THE MORNING OF POWER.
College life.—A Junior at Williams.—Favorite books.—College
traditions.—A brain of many powers.—“Mountain Day.”—Essays in
literature.—The Williams _Quarterly_.—Poems: _Memory_,
_Autumn_, _Charge of the Tight Brigade_.—A writing-master at
intervals.—Free Kansas.—A metaphysician.—Steps out with
honor.—Mark Hopkins.—Becomes a professor at Hiram.—And then a
college president.—His methods and manners.—Success as an
educator.—Lectures and preaches.—A union for life.—The chosen
mate.—Incipient politics.—First nomination for office.—State
senator from Portage and Summit.—Hints at leadership.—Rises
in influence.—The approaching conflict.—Ohio makes ready for
battle.—Independence Day at Ravenna.—Sound of the
tocsin.—Vanguard, to right and left the front unfold! 59–87
CHAPTER IV.
A SOLDIER OF THE UNION.
A West Point soldier.—George H. Thomas.—The Union
volunteer.—Garfield appointed Lieutenant-Colonel.—And then
Colonel.—The Forty-second Ohio.—Studies war.—Ordered to the
front.—Kentucky, who shall have her?—Marshall says,
_I_.—Garfield objects.—Don Carlos Buell.—Expedition to
Catlettsburg.—Pluck to the backbone, Sir.—Will attack
Paintville.—A man called Jordan.—The region and the
people.—Harry Brown, Esq.—Capture of Paintville.—Battle of
Middle Creek.—A big victory on a small scale.—Address to the
soldiers.—Big Sandy on the rampage.—Garfield takes a turn at
the wheel.—Proclamation to the people of the
Valley.—Concerning Pound Gap.—A proposed muster rudely broken
up.—Exit Humphrey Marshall.—General Orders No. 40.—Comments
on the campaign. 88–114
CHAPTER V.
HERO AND GENERAL.
Brigadier-General Garfield.—Reports to Buell.—A new field of
activity.—At Pittsburg Landing.—Stands up for Africa.—Sits on
court-martial.—Again the goblin shakes us.—But we report at
Washington.—Tries Fitz-John Porter.—Assigned to Hunter’s
command.—Appointed chief of staff to Rosecrans.—The
commanding general.—Duties of chief of staff.—Personal sketch
of Garfield.—Rosecrans dislikes him.—And then likes
him.—Sheridan’s ten-pins.—Garfield issues circular on prison
pens.—Helps Vallandigham across the border.—Opposes negro
insurrection.—Stands by Lincoln.—Organizes army
police.—Favors in advance.—The Tullahoma
campaign.—Rosecrans’s advance on Chattanooga.—The
capture.—Position of Bragg.—The big game begun.—Situation and
preliminaries.—The battle of Chickamauga.—Garfield’s
part.—Praise and promotion.—We are elected to Congress.—And
accept. 115–166
CHAPTER VI.
IN THE ASCENDANT.
The constituency of Garfield.—The old Western Reserve.—Joshua
R. Giddings.—Character of Congress.—Garfield enters the Cave
of the Winds.—On Military Committee.—Opposes the bounty
system.—Favors the draft.—Advocates confiscation.—Demolishes
A. Long, Esq.—The Wade-Davis Manifesto.—A strange
renomination.—Advocates the Thirteenth Amendment.—Beards
Stanton.—The assassination of Lincoln.—Scene in New
York.—Speech on the Lincoln anniversary.—The temperance
question.—Defends Milligan and Company.—Advocates a Bureau of
Education.—Chairman of Committee on Military Affairs.—The
visit to Europe.—Oration on Decoration Day. 167–210
CHAPTER VII.
LEADER AND STATESMAN.
Opposes his constituents on the money question.—Garfield on the
Ninth Census.—Speaks on Statistics.—Reports on Black
Friday.—Speaks on Civil Service.—Defends the prerogatives of
the House.—An authority on Revenue and Expenditure.—Speaks
against the McGarraghan Claim.—Advocates an Educational
Fund.—Opposes inflation of currency.—Discusses the railway
problem.—An oration on the Elements of Success.—Literary
views and habits.—Oration on the Life and Character of
Thomas.—Speech on the Future of the Republic. 211–253
CHAPTER VIII.
THE NOONTIDE.
The era of slander.—The Credit Mobilier of America.—Reviewed
and answered by Garfield.—The so-called Salary Grab.—Trouble
in the Western Reserve.—Garfield’s defense and
vindication.—The DeGollyer pavement matter.—Triumphant answer
to charges.—Democratic ascendancy of 1874.—The “Confederate
Congress.”—Garfield speaks on the Pension Bill.—Demolishes
Lamar.—Speech on the acceptance of the Winthrop and Adams
statues.—Opposes the Electoral Commission.—Favors Specie
Payments.—Proposed for Speaker.—Opposes the Bland Silver
Bill.—Speech on the Judicial Appropriation Bill.—The payment
of United States marshals.—Appropriation Bill again.—Elected
to the Senate. 254–307
CHAPTER IX.
GREAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS.
Questions of American statesmanship.—Garfield tested.—Speeches
on STATES RIGHTS AND NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY: No Nullification;
Force Bill; Equipoise of Government; Fourteenth
Amendment.—Speeches on FINANCE AND MONEY: The Industrial
Revolution; Gold and Silver; Currency; Banks; Paper Money;
Resumption Act.—Speeches on REVENUE AND EXPENDITURES: Free
Trade and Tariff; Public Expenditures; War Expenses.—Speeches
on CHARACTER AND TENDENCY OF AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS: Future of
the Republic; Government and Science; Revolution in Congress;
Voluntary powers of government; Free consent the basis of our
laws.—A general estimate of Garfield’s genius. 308–402
CHAPTER X.
THE CLIMAX OF 1880.
American political parties.—The Third Term question.—The Grant
movement.—Leaders of the Stalwarts.—The political
“Machine.”—Contrast of Garfield and Conkling.—Gathering of
the clans.—Grant and Anti-Grant.—The Unit Rule.—A truce.—Hoar
for Chairman.—Skirmishes.—Blaine’s
forces.—Adjournments.—Gloomy Friday.—Rule VIII.—Putting in
nomination.—Speeches of Frye, Conkling, and Garfield.—The
balloting.—Garfield and Arthur nominated. 403–442
CHAPTER XI.
CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY.
Delicate position of a presidential candidate.—The policy of
mum.—Garfield’s theory of running for office.—He is notified
of his nomination.—Hoar’s speech.—The reply.—The journey to
Cleveland.—Reception and speech at Hiram.—Address at
Painesville.—The shrine of Mentor.—Garfield visits
Washington.—Speaks to the people.—At Painesville.—Speech at
the Dedication of the Soldiers’ Monument.—Letter of
Acceptance.—The issues of the campaign.—Speaks at the
Dedication of the Geneva Monument.—Visits New York.—At
Chatauqua.—Attends reunion at Ashland.—Addresses the soldiers
at Mentor.—The October election.—The saintly pilgrims on
their way.—A candidate who dares to talk.—Speeches to the
pilgrims.—The mud-mill.—Morey _et al._—The machine bursts and
the millers get the mud.—Judgment Day.—Garfield is
elected.—Speaks to the Electors of Ohio.—Address to the
Carolina Delegation.—Conkling visits Mentor.—The departure
for Washington.—Last speech at Mentor.—En route for the
inauguration. 443–485
CHAPTER XII.
IN THE HIGH SEAT.
Morning of the Fourth of March.—Conspiracy of the
elements.—Preparations.—The procession.—Clears up.—The Grand
Ceremony.—Inaugural address.—Setting up in business.—The new
Cabinet.—The temperance question.—The Administration on its
feet.—The pro and con of a Called Session of
Congress.—Nomination of Robertson.—The Refunding
Question.—Dearth of politics.—Symptoms of a family
quarrel.—The issues involved in it.—The Robertson
appointment.—_Exeunt_ Conkling and Platt.—A President who has
his own way.—Smoother sailing after the storm.—Adjournment of
Congress.—Sickness in the White House.—Sympathy of the people
for Mrs. Garfield.—The Summer, what shall we do with it? 486–516
CHAPTER XIII.
SHOT DOWN.
Recovery of Mrs. Garfield.—A great tragedy.—First alarms.—The
physicians of the President.—The assassin.—The world’s
sympathy.—A dolorous Fourth.—Diagnosis.—Motives of the
assassin.—General Arthur.—Favorable progress of the
President.—Conkling’s letter on murder.—The President’s
mental condition.—Sunday.—Heated weather.—The
refrigerators.—Mistaken diagnosis.—Foreign sympathies.—The
Induction Balance.—The Mrs. Garfield Fund.—Supposed
convalescence.—President worse.—Surgical
operations.—Sensational dispatches.—Possible
malaria.—Induction Balance again.—Surgeons hopeful.—A second
operation.—Last letter.—Project of removal.—Dangerous
symptoms.—Mrs. Garfield.—A good queen.—Cheerful and
brave.—The inflamed parotid.—Pyæmia feared.—Gradual
decline.—Death imminent.—Removal determined
on.—Preparations.—Night scene at Elberon. 517–615
CHAPTER XIV.
GAZING ON THE SEA.
The President is removed to Long Branch.—Scenes and incidents
of the journey.—Francklyn Cottage.—Revival of hope.—Great
solicitude of the people.—Foolish confidence of the
surgeons.—The President somewhat revived.—Great anxiety
follows.—The last day.—Fatal chill.—Mrs. Garfield’s
heroism.—The gathering shadows.—Death. 616–643
CHAPTER XV.
THE SOLEMN PAGEANT.
Preparations for the funeral of the
President.—Embalmment.—Accession of Gen. Arthur.—The
post-mortem.—Astonishing revelations.—Announcement of the
President’s death.—The funeral train.—En route for
Washington.—Lying in state.—Victoria’s tribute.—Address of
Elder Powers.—Viewing the body.—The train for
Cleveland.—Reception and preparations.—Imposing
ceremonies.—The last day.—Closing scenes and addresses.—The
sepulchre.—Reflections. 646–672
DEATHLESS.
_This man hath reared a monument more grand
Than sculptured bronze, and loftier than the height
Of regal pyramids in Memphian sand,
Which not the raging tempest nor the might
Of the loud North-wind shall assailing blight,
Nor years unnumbered nor the lapse of time!
Not all of him shall perish! for the bright
And deathless part shall spurn with foot sublime
The darkness of the grave—the dread and sunless clime!_
_He shall be sung to all posterity
With freshening praise, where in the morning’s glow
The farm-boy with his harnessed team shall be,
And where New England’s swifter rivers flow
And orange groves of Alabama blow—
Strong in humility, and great to lead
A mighty people where the ages go!
Take then thy station, O illustrious dead!
And place, Immortal Fame, the garland on his head!_
—HORACE: B. III., ODE XXX.
LIFE AND WORK
OF
JAMES A. GARFIELD.
CHAPTER I.
BIRTH AND ANCESTRY.
Genius delights in hatching her offspring in out-of-the-way
places.—_Irving._
When some great work is waiting to be done,
And Destiny ransacks the city for a man
To do it; finding none therein, she turns
To the fecundity of Nature’s woods,
And there, beside some Western hill or stream,
She enters a rude cabin unannounced,
And ere the rough frontiersman from his toil,
Where all day long he hews the thickets down,
Returns at evening, she salutes his wife,
His fair young wife, and says, Behold! thou art
The Mother of the Future!
Men, like books, have their beginnings. James Abram Garfield was born on
the 19th day of November, 1831. His first outlook upon things was from a
cabin door in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. The building was of rough logs,
with mud between the cracks, to keep out the winter cold. The single
room had a puncheon floor, and on one side a large fire-place, with a
blackened crane for cooking purposes. In winter evenings, a vast pile of
blazing logs in this fire-place filled the cabin with a cheerful warmth
and ruddy glow. Overhead, from the rude rafters, hung rows of well-cured
hams, and around the mud chimney were long strings of red-pepper pods
and dried pumpkins. The furniture was as primitive as the apartment. A
puncheon table, a clumsy cupboard, a couple of large bedsteads, made by
driving stakes in the floor, some blocks for seats, and a well-kept gun,
almost complete the catalogue. The windows had greased paper instead of
glass; and, in rough weather, were kept constantly closed with heavy
shutters.
[Illustration: THE GARFIELD CABIN.]
Stepping out of doors, one would see that the cabin stood on the edge of
a small clearing of some twenty acres. On the south, at a little
distance, stood a solid log barn, differing from the house only in
having open cracks. The barn-yard had a worm fence around it, and
contained a heavy ox-wagon and a feeding-trough for hogs. Skirting the
clearing on all sides was the forest primeval, which, on the 19th of
November, the frost had already transfigured with gold and scarlet
splendors. Cold winds whistled through the branches, and thick showers
of dry leaves fell rustling to the ground.
Already the cabin shutters were closed for the winter; already the
cattle munched straw and fodder at the barn, instead of roaming through
the forest for tender grass and juicy leaves; already a huge wood-pile
appeared by the cabin door. The whole place had that sealed-up look
which betokens the approach of winter at the farm-house. The sun rose
late, hung low in the sky at high noon; and, after feeble effort, sunk
early behind the western forest. Well for the brave pioneers is it, if
they are ready for a long and bitter struggle with the winter.
So much for the home. But what of the family? Who and what are they? As
the babe sleeps in its mother’s arms, what prophecy of its destiny is
there written in the red pages of the blood ancestral?
In America, the Southern States have been the land of splendid
hospitality, chivalric manners, and aristocratic lineage; the West the
land of courage, enterprise, and practical executive ability; but the
New England States have been preëminently the home of intellectual
genius and moral heroism. From New England came both the father and
mother of James A. Garfield, and it means much. But there are reasons
for looking at his ancestry more closely.
The law of heredity has long been suspected, and, in late years, has
been, to a considerable extent, regarded as the demonstrated and
universal order of nature. It is the law by which the offspring inherits
the qualities and characteristics of its ancestors. It makes the oak the
same sort of a tree as the parent, from which the seed acorn fell. It
makes a tree, which sprang from the seed of a large peach, yield downy
fruit as large and luscious as the juicy ancestor. It says that every
thing shall produce after its kind; that small radishes shall come from
the seed of small radishes, and a richly perfumed geranium from the slip
cut from one of that kind. It says that, other things being equal, the
descendants of a fast horse shall be fast, and the posterity of a plug
shall be plugs. It says that a Jersey cow, with thin ears, straight
back, and copious yield of rich milk, shall have children like unto
herself. But a man has many more qualities and possibilities than a
vegetable or a brute. He has an infinitely wider range, through which
his characteristics may run. The color of his hair, his size, his
strength, are but the smallest part of his inheritance. He inherits also
the size and texture of his brain, the shape of his skull, and the skill
of his hands. It is among his ancestry that must be sought the reason
and source of his powers. It is there that is largely determined the
question of his capacity for ideas, and it is from his ancestry that a
man should form his ideas of his capacity. It is there that are largely
settled the matters of his tastes and temper, of his ambitions and his
powers. The question of whether he shall be a mechanic, a tradesman, or
a lawyer, is already settled before he gets a chance at the problem.
The old myth about the gods holding a council at the birth of every
mortal, and determining his destiny, has some truth in it. In one
respect it is wrong. The council of the gods is held years before his
birth; it has been in session all the time. If a man has musical skill,
he gets it from his ancestry. It is the same with an inventor, or an
artist, or a scholar, or a preacher. This looks like the law of fate. It
is not. It is the fate of law.
But this is not all of the law of inheritance. Men have an inherited
moral nature, as well as an intellectual one. Drunkenness, sensuality,
laziness, extravagance, and pauperism, are handed down from father to
son. Appetites are inherited, and so are habits. On the other hand,
courage, energy, self-denial, the power of work, are also transmitted
and inherited. If a man’s ancestry were thieves, it will not do to trust
him. If they were bold, true, honest men and women, it will do to rely
upon him.
In late years, this law of inheritance has been much studied by
scientists. The general law is about as has been stated; but it has
innumerable offsets and qualifications which are not understood.
Sometimes a child is a compound of the qualities of both parents. More
frequently the son resembles the mother, and the daughter the father.
Sometimes the child resembles neither parent, but seems to inherit every
thing from an uncle or aunt. Often the resemblance to the grand-parent
is the most marked. That these complications are governed by fixed,
though, at present, unknown laws, can not be doubted; but for the
purposes of biography the question is unessential.
Scientists say that nine-tenths of a man’s genius is hereditary, and
one-tenth accidental. The inherited portion may appear large, but it is
to be remembered that only _possibilities_ are inherited, and that _not
one man in a million reaches the limit of his possibilities_. If the
lives of the ancestors of James A. Garfield were studied, we could tell
what his possibilities were; while, by studying the life of Garfield
himself, we see how nearly he realized those possibilities. This is the
reason why biography interests itself in a man’s ancestors. They furnish
the key to the situation.
Of the many classes of colonists who settled this continent, by far the
most illustrious were the Puritans and the Huguenots. Their names, alike
invented as epithets of contempt and derision, have become the brightest
on the historic page. Their fame rests upon their sacrifices. Not for
gold, nor adventure, nor discovery, did they seek the forest-wrapped
continent of North America, but for the sake of worshiping God according
to the dictates of their own consciences. Different in nationality,
language, and temperament—the one from the foggy isle of England, the
other from the sunny skies of France—they alike fled from religious
persecution; the Puritan from that intolerance and bigotry which cost
Charles I. his head and revolutionized the English monarchy; the
Huguenot from the withdrawal of the last vestige of religious liberty by
Louis XIV. The proudest lineage which an American can trace is to one or
the other of these communities of exiles.—In James A. Garfield these two
currents of noble and heroic blood met and mingled.
The first ancestor, by the name of Garfield, of whom the family have any
record, is Edward Garfield, a Puritan, who, for the sake of conscience,
in 1636, left his home near the boundary line of England and Wales, and
joined the colony of the distinguished John Winthrop, at Watertown,
Massachusetts. He appears to have been a plain farmer, of deep,
religious convictions, and much respected by the community in which he
lived. Of his ancestry, only two facts are known. One is that no book of
the peerage or list of English nobility ever contained the name of
Garfield. The other is that, at some time in the past, possibly during
the Crusades, the family had received, or adopted, a coat of arms. The
device was a golden shield crossed by three crimson bars; in one corner
a cross; in another a heart; above the shield an arm and hand grasping a
sword. A Latin motto, “_In cruce vinco_,”—“In the cross I
conquer,”—completed the emblem. It is probable that the family had been
soldiers, not unlikely in a religious war. The wife of Edward Garfield
was a fair-haired girl from Germany.—To the brave heart and earnest
temper of the Welshman, was added the persistence and reflectiveness of
the German mind. Of their immediate descendants, but little can be told.
Like the ancestor they were
“To fortune and to fame unknown.”
But they were honest and respected citizens—tillers of the soil—not
infrequently holding some local position as selectman or captain of
militia. Five of the lineal descendants are said to sleep in the
beautiful cemetery in Watertown, “careless alike of sunshine and of
storm.”
Tracing the family history down to the stirring and memorable period of
the American Revolution, the name which has now become historic emerges
from obscurity. The spirit of Puritanism, which had braved the rigors of
life in the colonies rather than abate one jot of its intellectual
liberty, nourished by hardship and strengthened by misfortune, had been
handed down by the law of inheritance through eight peaceful
generations. It was the spirit which resented oppression, demanded
liberty, and fought for principle till the last dollar was spent, and
the last drop of blood was shed in her cause.
We might have calculated on the descendants of the Puritan colonist
being in the front of battle from the very outbreak of the War for
Independence. It was so. They were there. They were the kind of men to
be there. Abraham Garfield, great-uncle of the President, took part in
the first real battle of the Revolution, the fight at Concord Bridge,
which fixed the status of the Colonies as that of rebellion. On the
fourth day after the bloodletting the following affidavit was drawn up
and sworn to before a magistrate:
LEXINGTON, April 23, 1775.
“We, John Hoar, John Whithead, Abraham Garfield, Benjamin Munroe,
Isaac Parker, William Hosmer, John Adams, Gregory Stone, all of
Lincoln, in the County of Middlesex, Massachusetts Bay, all of
lawful age, do testify and say, that on Wednesday last, we were
assembled at Concord, in the morning of said day, in consequence of
information received that a brigade of regular troops were on their
march to the said town of Concord, who had killed six men at the
town of Lexington. About an hour afterwards we saw them approaching,
to the number, as we apprehended, of about 1,200, on which we
retreated to a hill about eighty rods back, and the said troops then
took possession of the hill where we were first posted. Presently
after this we saw the troops moving toward the North Bridge, about
one mile from the said Concord meeting-house; we then immediately
went before them and passed the bridge, just before a party of them,
to the number of about two hundred, arrived; they there left about
one-half of their two hundred at the bridge, and proceeded with the
rest toward Col. Barrett’s, about two miles from the said bridge;
and the troops that were stationed there, observing our approach,
marched back over the bridge and then took up some of the planks; we
then hastened our march toward the bridge, and when we had got near
the bridge they fired on our men, first three guns, one after the
other, and then a considerable number more; and then, and not before
(having orders from our commanding officers not to fire till we were
fired upon), we fired upon the regulars and they retreated. On their
retreat through the town of Lexington to Charlestown, they ravaged
and destroyed private property, and burnt three houses, one barn,
and one shop.”
[Illustration: MOTHER OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD.]
[Illustration: GEN. GARFIELD ADDRESSING THE PEOPLE AT CLEVELAND.]
[Illustration: RECEPTION TO GEN. GARFIELD AFTER THE NOMINATION.]
The act of signature to that paper was one of the sublimest courage. It
identified the leaders of the fight; it admitted and justified the act
of firing on the troops of the government! It seemed almost equal to
putting the executioner’s noose around their necks. But to such men,
life was a feather-weight compared to principle. If the Colonies were to
be roused to rebellion and revolution, the truth of that fight at
Concord bridge had to be laid before the people, accompanied by proofs
that could not be questioned. The patriots not only did the deed but
shouldered the responsibility. Of the signers with Abraham Garfield,
John Hoar was the great-grandfather of Senator George F. Hoar, presiding
officer of the convention which nominated James A. Garfield for the
Presidency.
Solomon Garfield, brother of Abraham, and great-grandfather of the
subject of this history, had married Sarah Stimpson in 1766, and was
living at Weston, Massachusetts, when the war broke out. Little is known
of him except that he was a soldier of the Revolution, and came out of
the war alive, but impoverished by the loss of his property. He soon
moved to Otsego County, New York, where one of his sons, Thomas
Garfield, married. It was on the latter’s farm, in December, 1799, that
was born Abram Garfield, the ninth lineal descendant of the Puritan, and
father of the man whose name and fame are henceforth the heritage of all
mankind. Two years after the birth of Abram, his father died suddenly
and tragically, leaving his young widow and several children in most
adverse circumstances. When about twelve years old, Abram, a stout
sun-burnt little fellow, fell in with a playmate two years younger than
himself, named Eliza Ballou, also a widow’s child whose mother had
recently moved to Worcester, Otsego County, New York, where the
Garfields were living. In that childhood friendship lay the germ of a
romantic love, of which the fruit was to be more important to men and to
history than that of the most splendid nuptials ever negotiated in the
courts of kings.
James Ballou, Eliza’s older brother, impatient of the wretched poverty
in which they dwelt, persuaded his mother to emigrate to Ohio. The
emigrant wagon, with its jaded horses, its muddy white cover, its much
jostled load of household articles, and its sad-eyed and forlorn
occupants! How the picture rises before the eyes! What a history it
tells of poverty and misfortune; of disappointment and hardship; of a
wretched home left behind, yet dear to memory because left behind; of a
still harder life ahead in the western wilderness toward which it wends
its weary way! More showy equipages there have been. The Roman chariot,
the English stage-coach, and the palace railway train, have each been
taken up and embalmed in literature. But the emigrant wagon, richer in
association, closer to the heart-throb, more familiar with tears than
smiles, has found no poet who would stoop to the lowly theme. In a few
years the emigrant wagon will be a thing of the past, and forgotten; but
though we bid it farewell forever, let it have a high place in the
American heart and history, as the precursor of our cities and our
civilization.
Thus the boy and girl were separated. Abram Garfield was brought up as a
“bound boy” by a farmer named Stone. While he was filling the place of
chore boy on the New York farm, Eliza Ballou, having something more than
an ordinary education, taught a summer school in the Ohio wilderness. It
is said that one day, in a terrific storm, a red bolt of lightning shot
through the cabin roof, smiting teacher and scholars to the floor, thus
breaking up the school. The spirit of tragedy seems to have hovered over
her entire life.
Love laughs at difficulties and delays, and in a few years after the
Ballou emigration, Abram Garfield, a “stalwart” of the earlier and
better kind, tramped his muddy way along the same roads, across the same
rivers, and—strange, was it not?—to the very cabin where the emigrant
wagon had stopped. Swift flew the shining days of courtship; and Eliza
Ballou became Eliza Ballou Garfield, the mother of the President.
Eliza Ballou was a lineal descendant of Maturin Ballou, a French
Huguenot, who, about the year 1685, upon the Revocation of the Edict of
Nantes, fled from the smiling vineyards of France to the rugged but
liberty-giving land of America. Joining the colony of Roger Williams, at
Cumberland, Rhode Island, which had adopted for its principle “In civil
matters, law; in religious matters, liberty,” he built a queer old
church, from the pulpit of which he thundered forth his philippics
against religious intolerance. The building still stands, and is a
curiosity of architecture. Not a nail was used in its construction. For
generation after generation the descendants of this man were eloquent
preachers, occupying the very pulpit of their ancestor. Their names are
famous. They were men of powerful intellects, thorough culture, and
splendid characters. Their posterity has enriched this country with many
distinguished lawyers, soldiers, and politicians. They were a superior
family from the first, uniting to brilliant minds a spotless integrity,
an indomitable energy, and the burning and eloquent gifts of the orator.
The best known member of the family is Rev. Hosea Ballou, the founder of
the Universalist Church in America, of whom Eliza Ballou was a
grand-niece. He was a man of wide intellectual activity, a prolific and
powerful writer, and made a marked impress on the thought of his
generation.
From this brief view of the ancestry of James A. Garfield, it is easy to
see that there was the hereditary preparation for a great man. From the
father’s side came great physical power, large bones, big muscles, and
an immense brain. From the father’s line also came the heritage of
profound conviction, of a lofty and resistless courage, which was ready
anywhere to do and die for the truth, and of the exhaustless patience
which was the product of ten generations of tilling the soil. On the
other hand, the Ballous were small of stature, of brilliant and
imaginative minds, of impetuous and energetic temperament, of the finest
grain, physically and mentally. They were scholars; people of books and
culture, and, above all, they were orators. From them, albeit, came the
intellectual equipment of their illustrious descendant. From the mother,
Garfield inherited the love of books, the capacity for ideas, the
eloquent tongue, and the tireless energy. To the earnest solidity and
love of liberty of the Welshman, Edward Garfield, mixed with the
reflective thought of the fair-haired German wife, was added the
characteristic clearness and vivacity of the French mind.
The trend of Garfield’s mind could not have been other than deeply
religious. The Ballous, for ten generations, had been preachers. No man
could combine in himself the Puritan and Huguenot without being a true
worshiper of God. On the other hand, while Puritans and Huguenots were
at first religious sects, their struggles were with the civil power; so
that each of them in time became the representative of the deepest
political life of their respective nationalities. Through both father
and mother, therefore, came a genius for politics and affairs of state;
the conservatism of the sturdy Briton being quickened by the radicalism,
the genius for reform which belongs to the mercurial Frenchman. From
both parents would also come a liberality and breadth of mind, which
distinguishes only a few great historic characters. The large, slow
moving, good natured Garfields were by temperament far removed from
bigotry; while the near ancestor of the mother had been excommunicated
from the Baptist Church, because he thought God was merciful enough to
save all mankind from the flames of ultimate perdition.
In Garfield’s ancestry there was also a vein of military genius. The
coat of arms, the militia captaincy of Benjamin Garfield, the affidavit
of Abraham at Concord bridge, are the outcroppings on the father’s side.
The mother was a near relative of General Rufus Ingalls; and her
brother, for whom the President was named, was a brave soldier in the
war of 1812.
These, then, are some of the prophecies which had been spoken of the
child that was born in the Garfield cabin in the fall of 1831. Future
biographers will, perhaps, make more extended investigations, but we
have seen something, in the language of the dead hero himself, “of those
latent forces infolded in the spirit of the new-born child; forces that
may date back centuries and find their origin in the life and thoughts
and deeds of remote ancestors; forces, the germs of which, enveloped in
the awful mystery of life, have been transmitted silently from
generation to generation, and never perish.” As we pursue his history we
will see these various forces cropping out in his career; at one time
the scholar, at another, the preacher; at others, the soldier, the
orator, or the statesman, but always, always the man.
For two years after the birth of their youngest child James, the lives
of Abram and Eliza Garfield flowed on peacefully and hopefully enough.
The children were growing; the little farm improving; new settlers were
coming in daily; and there began to be much expected from the new system
of internal improvements. With happy and not unhopeful hearts they
looked forward to a future of comfortable prosperity. But close by the
cradle gapes the grave. Every fireside has its tragedy. In one short
hour this happy, peaceful life had fled. The fire fiend thrust his torch
into the dry forests of north-western Ohio, in the region of the
Garfield home. In an instant, the evening sky was red with flame. It was
a moment of horror. Sweeping on through the blazing tree-tops with the
speed of the wind came the tornado of fire. Destruction seemed at hand,
not only of crops and fences, but of barns, houses, stock, and of the
people themselves. In this emergency, the neighbors for miles around
gathered under the lead of Abram Garfield to battle for all that was
near and dear. A plan of work was swiftly formed. Hour after hour they
toiled with superhuman effort. Choked and blinded by volumes of smoke,
with scorched hands and singed brows, they fought the flames hand to
hand till, at last, the current of death was turned aside. The little
neighborhood of settlers was saved. But the terrific exertions put forth
by Abram Garfield had exhausted him beyond the reach of recuperation.
Returning home, from the night of toil, and incautiously exposing
himself, he was attacked with congestion of the lungs. Every effort to
relieve the sufferer was made by the devoted wife. Every means known to
her was used to rally the exhausted vitality, but in vain. Chill
followed chill. The vital powers were exhausted, and the life-tide ebbed
fast away. In a few hours the rustle of black wings was heard in that
lowly home in the wilderness. Calling his young wife to him he
whispered, “Eliza, you will soon be alone. We have planted four saplings
here in these woods; I leave them to your care.” One last embrace from
the grief-stricken wife and children; one more look through the open
door at the little clearing and the circling forest, over which the
setting sun was throwing its latest rays, and the heroic spirit had
departed. Little by little the darkness of the night without came in and
mingled with the darkness of the night within.
Though stunned by this appalling calamity, Eliza Ballou Garfield, true
to the heroic ancestry from which she sprung, took up the burden of life
with invincible courage. The prospect was a hard one. Of the four
children, the oldest, Thomas, was ten years of age; the two little girls
ranged at seven and four, and the blue-eyed baby, James, had seen only
twenty months. On the other hand, the widow’s resources were scanty
indeed. The little farm was only begun. To make a farm in a timber
country is a life task for the stoutest man. Years and years of arduous
toil would be required to fell the timber, burn the stumps, grub out the
roots, and fence the fields before it could really be a farm. Worse than
this, the place was mortgaged. The little clearing of twenty acres, with
the imperfect cultivation which one weak woman, unaided, could give it,
had to be depended on, not only to furnish food for herself and the four
children, but to pay taxes and interest on the mortgage, and gradually
to lessen the principal of the debt itself. The pioneer population of
the country was as poor as herself, hardly able to raise sufficient
grain for bread, and reduced almost to starvation by the failure of a
single crop.
So fearful were the odds against the plucky little widow that her
friends pointed out the overwhelming difficulties of the situation, and
earnestly advised her to let her children be distributed among the
neighbors for bringing up. Firmly but kindly she put aside their
well-meant efforts. With invincible courage and an iron will, she said:
“My family must not be separated. It is my wish and duty to raise these
children myself. No one can care for them like a mother.” It is from
such a mother that great men are born. She lost no time in irresolution,
but plunged at once into the roughest sort of men’s labor. The
wheat-field was only half fenced; the precious harvest which was to be
their sustenance through the winter was still ungathered, and would be
destroyed by roving cattle, which had been turned loose during the
forest fires. The emergency had to be met, and she met it. Finding in
the woods some trees, fresh fallen beneath her husband’s glittering ax,
she commenced the hard work of splitting rails. At first she succeeded
poorly; her hands became blistered, her arms sore, and her heart sick.
But with practice she improved. Her small arms learned to swing the maul
with a steady stroke. Day by day the worm fence crawled around the wheat
field, until the ends met.
The highest heroism is not that which manifests itself in some single
great and splendid crisis. It is not found on the battle-field where
regiments dash forward upon blazing batteries, and in ten minutes are
either conquerors or corpses. It is not seen at the stake of martyrdom,
where, for the sake of opinion, men for a few moments endure the
unimaginable tortures of the flames. It is not found in the courtly
tournaments of the past, where knights, in glittering armor, flung the
furious lance of defiance into the face of their foe. Splendid, heroic,
are these all. But there is a heroism grander still; it is the heroism
which endures, not merely for a moment, but through the hard and bitter
toils of a life-time; which, when the inspiration of the crisis has
passed away, and weary years of hardship stretch their stony path before
tired feet, cheerfully takes up the burden of life, undaunted and
undismayed. In all the annals of the brave, who, in all times, have
suffered and endured, there is no scene more touching than the picture
of this widow toiling for her children.
The annals of this period of life in the Garfield cabin are simple. But
biography, when it has for its theme one of the loftiest men that ever
lived, loves to busy itself with the details of his childhood and to try
to trace in them the indications of future greatness. The picture of
that life has been given by the dauntless woman herself. In the spring
of the year, the little corn patch was broken up with an old-fashioned
wooden plow with an iron share. At first the ox-team was mostly driven
by the widow herself, but Tom, the oldest boy, soon learned to divide
the labor. The baby was left with his older sister, while the mother and
older son worked at the plow, or dragged a heavy tree branch—a primitive
harrow—over the clods. When the seed was to be put in, it was by the
same hands. The garden, with its precious store of potatoes, beans, and
cabbages, came in for no small share of attention, for these were the
luxuries of the frugal table. From the first Tom was able largely to
attend to the few head of stock on the little place. When a hog was to
be killed for curing, some neighbor was given a share to perform the act
of slaughter. The mysteries of smoking and curing the various parts were
well understood by Mrs. Garfield. At harvest, also, the neighbors would
lend a hand, the men helping in the field, and the women at the cabin
preparing dinner. Of butter, milk, and eggs, the children always had a
good supply, even if the table was in other respects meager. There was a
little orchard, planted by the father, which thrived immensely. In a
year or two the trees were laden with rosy fruit. Cherries, plums, and
apples peeped out from their leafy homes. The gathering was the
children’s job, and they made it a merry one.
From the first the Garfield children performed tasks beyond their years.
Corn-planting, weed-pulling, potato-digging, and the countless jobs
which have to be performed on every farm, were shared by them. The first
winter was one of the bitterest privation. The supplies were so scanty
that the mother, unobserved by the four hungry little folks, would often
give her share of the meal to them. But after the first winter, the
bitter edge of poverty wore off. The executive ability of the little
widow began to tell on the family affairs. In the following spring, the
mortgage on the place was canceled by selling off fifty of the eighty
acres. In the absence of money, the mother made exchanges of work—sewing
for groceries, spinning for cotton, and washing for shoes. In time, too,
the children came to be a valuable help.
But though this life was busy and a hard one, it was not _all_ that
occupied the attention of the family. The Garfield cabin had an inner
life; a life of thought and love as well as of economy and work. Mrs.
Garfield had a head for books as well as business. Her husband and
herself had been members of the Church of the Disciples, followers of
Alexander Campbell. In her widowhood, for years she and her children
never missed a sabbath in attending the church three miles away. If ever
there was an earnest, honest Christian, Eliza Garfield was one. A short,
cheerful prayer each morning, no matter how early she and the children
rose, a word of thankfulness at the beginning of every meal, no matter
how meager, and a thoughtful, quiet Bible-reading and prayer at night,
formed part of that cabin life. Feeling keenly the poor advantages of
the children in the way of education, she told them much of history and
the world, and thus around her knee they learned from the loving teacher
lessons not taught in any college. When James was five years old, his
older sister for awhile carried him on her back to the log school-house,
a mile and a half distant, at a place dignified with the name of a
village, though it contained only a store, blacksmith shop, and the
school. But the school was too far away. The enterprise of Mrs. Garfield
was nowhere better shown than in her offering the land, and securing a
school-house on her own farm. She was determined on her children having
the best education the wilderness afforded, and they had it.
But the four children were strangely different. They had the same
ancestry, and the same surroundings. Who could have foretold the wide
difference of their destinies? The girls were cheerful, industrious, and
loving. They were fair scholars at the country school, and were much
thought of in the neighborhood. At a very early age they took from the
tired mother’s shoulders a large share of the work of the little
household. They carded, spun, wove, and mended the boys’ clothes when
they were but children themselves. They beautified the rough little
home, and added a cheery joy to its plain surroundings. They were
superior to the little society in which they mingled, but not above it.
There were apple-parings, corn-huskings, quilting-bees, apple-butter and
maple-sugar boilings, in which they were the ringleaders of
mischief—romping, cheerful, healthy girls, happy in spite of adversity,
ambitious only to make good wives and mothers.
Thomas, the elder brother, was a Garfield out and out. He was a
plodding, self-denying, quiet boy, with the tenderest love for his
mother, and without an ambition beyond a farmer’s life. When the other
children went to school, he staid at home “to work,” he said, “so that
the girls and James might get an education.” For himself he “would do
without it.” Wise, thoughtful, and patient, he was the fit successor of
the generations of Garfields who had held the plow-handle before he was
born. Without a complaint, of his own will he worked year after year,
denying himself every thing that could help his brother James to
education and an ambitious manhood. For from the first, mother and
children felt that in the youngest son lay the hope of the family.
James took precociously to books, learning to read early, and knowing
the English reader almost by heart _at eight years of age_. His first
experience at the school built on the home farm is worth noting. The
seats were hard, the scene new and exciting, and his stout little frame
tingled with restrained energy. He squirmed, twisted, writhed, peeped
under the seats and over his shoulder; tied his legs in a knot, then
untied them; hung his head backwards till the blood almost burst forth,
and in a thousand ways manifested his restlessness. Reproofs did no
good. At last the well-meaning teacher told James’s mother that nothing
could be made of the boy. With tears in her eyes the fond, ambitious
mother talked to the little fellow that night in the fire-light. The
victory was a triumph of love. The boy returned to school, still
restless, but studious as well. At the end of the term he received a
copy of the New Testament as a prize for being the best reader in the
school. The restlessness, above mentioned, seems to have followed him
through life. Sleeping with his brother he would kick the cover off at
night, and then say, “Thomas, cover me up.” A military friend relates
that, during the civil war, after a day of terrible bloodshed, lying
with a distinguished officer, the cover came off in the old way, and he
murmured in his sleep, “Thomas, cover me up.” Wakened by the sound of
his own voice, he became aware of what he had said; and then, thinking
of the old cabin life, and the obscure but tender-hearted brother,
General Garfield burst into tears, and wept himself to sleep.
The influences surrounding the first ten or twelve years of life are apt
to be underestimated. But it can not be doubted that the lessons of
child-life learned in the cabin and on the little farm had more to do
with Garfield’s future greatness than all his subsequent education. Like
each of his parents, he was left without a father at the age of two
years. If any one class of men have more universally risen to prominence
than another it has been widow’s sons. The high sense of responsibility,
the habits of economy and toil, are a priceless experience. None is to
be pitied more than the child of luxury and fortune, and no one suspects
his disadvantages less. Hated poverty is, after all, the nursery of
greatness. The discipline which would have crushed a weak soul only
served to strengthen the rugged and vigorous nature of this boy.
The stories which come down to us of Garfield’s childhood, though not
remarkable, show that he was different from the boys around him. He had
a restless, aspiring mind, fond of strong food. Every hint of the
outside world fascinated him, and roused the most pertinacious
curiosity. Yet to this wide-eyed interest in what lay outside of his
life this shock-haired, bare-legged boy added an indomitable zeal for
work. From dawn to dark he toiled; but whether chopping wood, working in
the field or at the barn, it was always with the idea and inspiration
that he was “helping mother.” Glorious loyalty of boyhood!