THE ASSASSINATION.
General Garfield was a singularly domestic man, and his life while
he was a Representative, at his pleasant home on I Street was a
happy one. Believing in the power of steady and sincere labor, he
had mastered language, science, literature, and the fine arts.
Artists found in him a zealous advocate for their employment and
remuneration by Congress, and he was thoroughly acquainted with
the works of the old masters. He was a great lover of scrap-books,
and he had in his library a shelf full of them, containing articles
and paragraphs relating to the subjects lettered on their back.
In this work Mrs. Garfield rendered him valuable aid, cutting and
sorting the scraps which he would mark in newspapers, and then
pasting them into the scrap-books.
Freemasonry was very dear to General Garfield, who was a regular
attendant on the meetings of the lodge, chapter, and encampment
with which he was affiliated. He was the President of a literary
association, the meetings of which he used to attend with great
regularity. Occasionally he went to the theatre or to a concert,
and I well remember the delight which he manifested when attending
the "readings" of Charles Dickens. When the "Christmas Carol" was
read, as Mr. Dickens pronounced the words, "Bless his heart, it's
Fezziwig alive yet," a dog, with some double bass vocalism, stirred,
perhaps, by some ghostly impulse, responded: "Bow! wow! wow!" with
a repetition that not only brought down the house wildly, but threw
Mr. Dickens himself into such convulsions of humor that he could
not proceed with his readings. "Bow! wow! wow!" was General
Garfield's favorite greeting for months afterward when he met any
one whom he knew to have been at the lecture.
The White House, during the short time that General Garfield was
permitted to occupy it, was a continued scene of domestic enjoyment.
"Mother" Garfield had an honored place at the family table at her
son's right hand, and was always waited on first, whoever else
might be present. On the other side of the President sat Jamie,
who was his father's pet. Harry, the oldest boy, always sat next
his mother, and then Miss Mollie, who was approaching womanhood,
Irwin, and little Abram, who was but nine years of age. Mrs.
Garfield was a believer in good fare, and there was always an
abundance of wholesome, nutritious food, with good coffee, tea,
and milk. Flowers from the conservatory adorned the table at every
meal. After dinner President Garfield used to indulge in a game
of billiards, having promptly restored to its place the billiard-
table banished by Mrs. Hayes. Occasionally he would indulge in a
cigar, and he was not averse to a glass of champagne or Rhine wine
or lager beer, although he drank temperately and without hypocrisy.
He liked, as night came on, to take a gallop on horseback, and he
was a fearless rider.
General Garfield displayed the advantage of having been regularly
"trained" for his Presidential position. He heard the stories of
all with a sympathetic manner that inspired confidence. He knew
how to free himself from those who attempted to monopolize too much
of his time, and he never gave place-hunters reason to believe that
their prayers would be granted when he knew that it would not be
so. There was not, after all, such a crowd of office-seekers as
might have been expected at the commencement of a new Administration.
Some members of the Cabinet had scores of political mortgages out,
which they were called upon to redeem, and which gave the President
a great deal of trouble. Then came the rejection of a Solicitor-
General by the Senate, whose appointment was not acceptable to the
pragmatical Attorney-General, New York troubles, the forced exposure
of the Star-route scandals, and other antagonisms, rivalries, and
dissensions. The Garfield Administration was on the verge of
dissolution within four months after its creation.
Mrs. Garfield, familiarly called by her husband "Crete," held four
successive receptions of invited guests immediately after the
inauguration, at which her deportment and dress met with the
heartiest commendation of "society." Lady-like, sweet-voiced,
unruffled, well informed, and always appropriately dressed, she
was eminently fitted to be "the first lady in the land," and she
quietly yet firmly repelled any patronizing attempts to direct her
movements. She had a natural aversion to publicity, but was anxious
to entertain the thousands who flocked to the White House. To a
stranger she appeared reticent and rather too retiring to make him
feel at home, but the second and third time he saw her he began to
appreciate her sterling, womanlike qualities, and to like her.
During the Presidential campaign Mrs. Garfield had been under a
mental strain, and when installed in the White House the struggle
between the contending New York factions gave her great uneasiness,
for she possessed a complete mastery of politics. At last she was
taken ill, and called in a lady physician, a responsible middle-
aged woman, homoeopathic in practice, who had sometimes attended
the children. When she grew worse they summoned Dr. Pope, a
homoeopath of skill and reputation, and gave the case into his
hands, retaining the lady as nurse. Last of all, as the physician
wished consultation, they sent for Dr. Boynton, of Cleveland, a
cousin of the President and a physician of good local practice.
It was decided that Mrs. Garfield should seek change of air, and
she left Washington and her husband for Long Branch, little dreaming
that she should never see him again in health.
Then came the fatal morning of Saturday, July 2d, when--as we are
told by Mr. Blaine, who accompanied him--General Garfield was a
happy man, feeling that trouble lay behind him and not before him,
that he was soon to meet his beloved wife, recovered from an illness
that had disquieted him, and that he was going to his Alma Mater
to renew the most cherished association of his early manhood. Thus
gladsome, he entered the station of the Baltimore and Potomac
Railroad, strong, healthy, and happy. There was a succession of
pistol-shots, and he fell helpless, doomed to weary weeks of torture
as he slowly descended through the martyr-gate into his grave.
The nation was inexpressibly shocked as the news of the assassination
spread over the wires, and the deep anxiety which pervaded the
popular mind showed the warm and intense love felt for their
President, who was the incarnation of their own institutions. A
special train carried Mrs. Garfield to Washington, bearing up under
the weight of her sorrow with true womanly fortitude, and on her
arrival she had the satisfaction of finding her husband alive and
able to converse with her. There were hopes that with his heroic
and cheerful courage, and his naturally strong constitution, he
might struggle back to vigorous life. The bulletins issued twice
a day by the physicians in attendance gave hopes, generally, of
the ultimate recovery of the suffering patient, but there are good
reasons for believing that these bulletins did not give a correct
statement of the sufferer's condition. The President's family
physician, Dr. J. H. Baxter, was not allowed to see him, and eminent
surgeons, while they believed that death was inevitable, asserted
that the entire diagnosis of the case was wrong from the beginning
to the end. Meanwhile the patient endured pain with the calmness
of a martyr, and he gazed on death with the eye of a philosopher.
"I am not afraid to die," said he, "but I will try to live." He
was finally taken to the seaside, and there he breathed his last.
His remains were conveyed to Washington, attended by his bereaved
family, President Arthur, General Grant, and other distinguished
persons, and escorted to the Capitol by the Knights Templar and
the military. Twenty-nine weeks previous, when General Garfield
had gone in state, in the strength of his manhood, along Pennsylvania
Avenue, the _Via Sacra_ of our Republic, to assume the responsible
duties of Chief Magistrate, the bands had played patriotic airs,
and he had received the loud acclaims of his fellow-citizens. Now,
as his mortal remains passed over the same route in a hearse drawn
by six white horses, the lively music was replaced by the solemn
strains of funeral marches, and sorrow appeared to fill every
breast.
The casket was laid in state beneath the great dome of the Capitol,
within a short distance of the spot where, on the 4th of March
previous, the occupant had pronounced his inaugural address. For
two days thousands of citizens, of all classes, conditions, and
nationalities, reverentially filed past the coffin and gazed upon
the wasted form and pallid lineaments of the deceased. On Friday
the afflicted widow took the last look at the face of the dead,
and after she had left the impressive funeral ceremonies were
performed. The remains were then escorted by the military, their
arms reversed, their flags shrouded, and their bands wailing dirges,
to the depot where the assassination took place, where they were
placed on a railroad train to be conveyed to Cleveland with his
family and a large number of distinguished mourners.
The funeral train arrived at Cleveland on the afternoon of September
24th, and on the 26th the remains of the nation's second martyr-
President were consigned to their last resting-place, amid the
flashing lightning and the rolling thunder of a severe storm. The
day was consecrated all over the country to manifestation of respect
for the memory of the dead, and messages of condolence were flashed
beneath the Atlantic from the leading foreign powers of the Old
World, expressing their regard for the memory of a ruler who had
endeared himself to the wide world by the heroism of humanity. As
the muffled bells in fifty thousand steeples tolled the burial
hour, the hearts of fifty millions of people beat in homage to the
deceased President, whose remains were being entombed on the shore
of Lake Erie. Public and private edifices were lavishly decorated
in black, there were processions in the Northern cities, and funeral
services in many congregations, eliciting the remark that the
prayers of Christian people in all quarters of the globe "following
the sun and keeping company with the hours," had circled the earth
with an unbroken strain of mourning and sympathy. Criticism was
silenced, faults were forgotten, and nothing but good was spoken
of the dead.
Charles Guiteau, the cowardly wretch who assassinated General
Garfield, was a native of Chicago, thirty-six years of age, short
in stature, and with a well-knit, stout frame. He had led a vagabond
life, and had come to Washington after the inauguration of General
Garfield, seeking appointment to a foreign consulate, and when he
found himself disappointed, his morbid imagination sought revenge.
Attorney-General MacVeagh, who was then bent on making political
mischief by the Star-route prosecutions, made himself ridiculous
when General Garfield died by asserting that the United States had
jurisdiction over the cottage in which the President died, and
endeavoring to exclude the New Jersey authorities. He then appeared
to take no interest in the prosecution of Guiteau, and although he
had employed eminent legal talent in the Star-route and Howgate
cases, he gave District Attorney Corkhill no aid in the trial of
the assassin until President Arthur gave peremptory instructions
that Messrs. Porter and Davidge should be employed. They came in
to the case at a late day, and were forced to depend almost wholly
upon the District-Attorney for bearings.
Colonel George A. Corkhill, the District Attorney, was a native of
Ohio, then forty-four years of age. After graduating from the Iowa
Wesleyan University he entered Harvard Law School, where he remained
over a year, when, at the breaking out of the Rebellion, he entered
the army, serving faithfully until the close of the war. After
having practiced at St. Louis, he married a daughter of Justice
Miller, of the Supreme Court, and came to Washington in 1872 as
editor of the _Daily Chronicle_. In January, 1880, President Hayes
appointed him District Attorney.
From the day on which General Garfield was shot, Colonel Corkhill
began industriously to "work up the case." He obtained the evidence,
studied precedents, hunted up witnesses, and, unaided by any other
counsel, had Guiteau indicted and arraigned. The admirable
preparation of the case, the spirit of justice, the fairness so
liberally extended to the prisoner and his counsel, and the judicious
and effective conduct of the trial to a just and satisfactory
conclusion were mainly due to him. His management of the case from
the start was beyond all praise. From his opening speech he
displayed great good sense, added to a perfect understanding of
the facts, a marked talent for criminal practice, thorough judgment
of men, and an extraordinary dignity of bearing. With admirable
temper and self-control, he submitted to indignity and insult in
the court-house, which the judge was unable to restrain, and to
unmerited obloquy, without arousing misapprehension and misconstruction.
The trial lasted eleven weeks, but it could not be said to have
been a wearying or tiresome exhibition. On the contrary, none of
the sensational plays that had been in vogue for years past had
been crowded with more dramatic situations and unexpected displays.
This most remarkable of criminal trials came at last to an end,
and the promptitude of the jury in rendering a verdict of "guilty,"
conveyed a sharp rebuke to the lawyers who spent so many wearisome
days in summing up the case. In due time atonement for the great
crime was made on the scaffold, so far, at least, as human laws
can go. The nation then rested easier and breathed freer, happy
in the fact that the meanest of cowardly knaves had passed to his
long account.
[Facsimile]
Leut Genl P.H. Sheridan
PHILIP HENRY SHERIDAN was born at Somerset, Ohio, March 6th, 1831;
was graduated from the Military Academy at West Point, and commissioned
as Brevet Second Lieutenant July 1st, 1853; served on the Pacific
coast, and at the outbreak of the War for the Suppression of the
Rebellion was Chief Quartermaster of the Army of Missouri;
distinguished himself as a cavalry commander; he was made Brigadier
and then Major-General of Volunteers, and received the commission
of Major-General in the regular army for his gallantry at Cedar
Creek, October 19th, 1864, when he achieved a brilliant victory
for the third time in pitched battle within thirty days; was promoted
to the rank of Lieutenant-General March 4th, 1869, and became
Commander of the Army on the retirement of General Sherman, February
8th, 1884.