Destiny of the Republic - Candice Millard [154]
Chapter 18: “Keep Heart”
1 “I hope the dangers are nearly passed”: Lucretia Garfield to Mrs. Logan, July 14, 1881.
2 Although she continued to spend: Feis, Mollie Garfield in the White House, 88.
3 “I hope I shall not disappoint you”: Shaw, Lucretia, 91.
4 “Blundered!”: Lucretia, Diary, April 20, 1881, in Garfield, Diary, 641, 4:641.
5 “In these few weeks of trial and anxiety”: “The President’s Wife,” New York Times, Aug. 28, 1881.
6 “She must be a pretty brave woman”: Mabel Bell to Alexander Graham Bell, July 25, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
7 “His gradual progress”: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 31.
8 “day of thanksgiving for the recovery”: “Thanksgiving for the President,” New York Times, July 13, 1881.
9 “You keep heart”: “A Typical American Family,” New York Times, July 25, 1881.
10 “Every passage of his bowels”: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 18.
11 “rarely spoke of his condition”: Ibid., 14.
12 His only link to the outside world: “Still Brighter Prospects,” New York Times, July 8, 1881.
13 “Strangulatus pro Republica”: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield, 2:1193.
14 “There was never a moment”: Rockwell, “From Mentor to Elberon.”
15 Finally, nearly a month after the shooting: Harriet S. Blaine and Beale, Letters of Mrs. James G. Blaine, p. 220.
16 “But I move the diaphragm”: “Still Brighter Prospects,” New York Times, July 8, 1881.
17 “I won’t talk to you”: “At the Patient’s Bedside,” New York Times, July 5, 1881.
18 Friends and family members in Ohio: “The Feeling in Cleveland,” New York Times, July 4, 1881.
19 “Everywhere,” one reporter wrote, “hope and confidence”: “The President’s Fight for Life,” New York Times, July 7, 1881.
20 “out of danger”: Harriet S. Blaine and Beale, Letters of Mrs. James G. Blaine, 221.
21 “large quantity”: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 38–39.
22 “neither ashamed nor afraid”: Fisher, Joseph Lister, 130.
23 “was looking very well”: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 39.
24 “he is feverish”: Ibid., 40.
25 “drenched with a profuse perspiration”: Ibid., 41.
26 “the President bore”: “Complete Medical Record of President Garfield’s Case Containing All of the Official Bulletins,” 25–26.
27 He vomited repeatedly: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 43.
28 “weak solution of car bolic [sic] acid”: Ibid., 42.
29 Unbeknownst to his doctors: Autopsy of James A. Garfield, 4.
30 An enormous cavity: Ibid., 3.
31 “We received every morning”: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 23.
32 One man sent the doctors plans: Ibid.
33 A man in Maryland wrote to Bliss: Prichard and Herring, “The Problem of the President’s Bullet,” Surgery, Gynecology, and Obstetrics, 2 (May 1951), 625–33.
34 Although Bliss admitted: Ibid., 626.
35 “had a suspicion”: Ibid., 627.
36 “bullet has pierced the liver”: “A Great Nation in Grief,” New York Times, July 3, 1881.
37 At least one doctor in Washington: Baker, President Garfield’s Case, 1–8.
38 Baker even drew up a diagram: Ibid.
39 “I felt,” he would later explain, “that it was improper”: Quoted in Rutkow, James A. Garfield, 117.
40 “These bulletins were often the subject”: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 19.
41 “If the slightest unfavorable symptom”: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 19.
42 “Your arrival and ‘Professor’ Tainter’s”: Mabel Bell to Alexander Graham Bell, July 16, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
43 “the experiment will be watched”: “Search for the Pistol Ball,” Washington Post, July 15, 1881.
44 “Ordinary telegrams I presume”: Bell to Mabel Bell, July 26, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
45 Since he had agreed to a brief interview: Bell, “Volta Lab Notes,” July 18, 1881.
46 “carried a bullet in his body”: Bell, Upon the Electrical Experiments, 18.
47 “sonorous spot”: Bell