Destiny of the Republic - Candice Millard [116]
Rockwell was again with Garfield on the evening of September 19. The president had been suffering from chills, fever, and a persistent cough, but still he longed for companionship. Looking over at his old friend, with whom he had passed many happy evenings, he lifted his hands slightly above the bedcovers and wistfully pantomimed dealing a deck of cards. Soon after, Swaim arrived to relieve Rockwell for the night, and Garfield fell asleep.
At 10:00 p.m., as Swaim sat in silence in the president’s room, he suddenly heard Garfield make a gasping sound, as if he were struggling to speak. Rushing to his bedside, he saw, by the light of a single candle, Garfield open his eyes and look at him for a moment. “Well, Swaim,” he said, and then, suddenly pressing his hand to his heart, he cried out, “Oh my! Swaim, what a pain I have right here.”
Bliss was in his room, reading through the day’s multitude of letters offering sympathy and medical advice—“wonderful productions of the human imagination”—when one of Garfield’s attendants appeared at the door. “General Swaim wants you quick!” he said. As soon as he reached the room, Bliss knew that there was nothing he could do. Garfield was unconscious, his breathing shallow and fast. “My God, Swaim!” Bliss cried.
Moments later, Lucretia, who had been woken by the attendant, was standing next to Bliss, looking at her husband in terror. “Oh!” she said, “What is the matter?” For once, Bliss had no words of encouragement to offer the first lady. “Mrs. Garfield,” he replied quietly, “the President is dying.”
As Lucretia bent over James, kissing his brow, the attendant sent word throughout the house and to nearby cottages. One of the first to come was Joseph Stanley Brown. For the rest of his life, Brown would write, he could “hear the long, solemn roll of the sea on the shore as I did on that night of inky darkness, when I walked from my cottage to his bedside.” Before many minutes had passed, the room was filled with everyone who had come with them to Elberon—Garfield’s surgeons, his friends, and his fourteen-year-old daughter, Mollie. They were, Bliss would later write, “the witnesses of the last sad scene in this sorrowful history.”
As Bliss tried in vain to stop what was happening, he could feel Garfield slipping away. “A faint, fluttering pulsation of the heart,” he would remember, “gradually fading to indistinctness.” For several minutes, the only sound in the room was the president’s ragged, irregular breathing. Finally, at 10:35 p.m., Bliss raised his head from Garfield’s chest. “It is over,” he said.
There was not a movement or a sound, even of crying. “All hearts,” Bliss would write, “were stilled.” After a moment, the room slowly began to empty, until Lucretia was left alone with James. She sat by his bed for more than an hour, staring at his frail and lifeless body. Finally, Rockwell returned and, gently touching her arm, “begged her to retire.” Without a word, she stood, and allowed him to lead her away.
• CHAPTER 22 •
ALL THE ANGELS OF THE UNIVERSE
If a man murders you without provocation, your soul bears no burden
of the wrong; but all the angels of the universe will weep for the
misguided man who committed the murder.
JAMES A. GARFIELD
Just after midnight, as he worked late at his house in Washington, Alexander Graham Bell’s concentration was suddenly interrupted by a newsboy’s shout ringing through the streets. “Extra Republican!” the boy cried. “Death of General Garfield!”
Unable to bear his isolation in Boston any longer, Bell had finally made his way back to the city the day before. Although he was still mourning the death of his son, his thoughts about the induction balance continued to churn urgently even as he had rattled into Washington on the Baltimore and Potomac. “Please hunt