Destiny of the Republic - Candice Millard [38]
Not long after Garfield climbed into bed that morning, tens of thousands of people left their homes and hotels and began walking toward the Capitol, determined to see the inauguration despite falling snow and bitter cold. With very few exceptions, presidential inaugurations had been held on the same day in March for nearly ninety years, since George Washington’s second inauguration in Philadelphia. The four-month delay between the election and the inauguration was then thought necessary to allow the president-elect sufficient time to travel to the capital. As transportation improved dramatically, however, and circumstances such as the Civil War made the delay not just difficult but dangerous, the date had not changed, and would not for another fifty-two years.
By the time a crowd had gathered on the National Mall for Garfield’s inauguration, the snow lay an inch and a half thick over the broad greensward and on the buildings that stood, in various stages of completion, along its edges. To the east lay the Capitol, which, waylaid by two wars, one fire—set by the British during the War of 1812—multiple architects, and bad reviews, had taken seventy-five years to complete. Farther west, on the Mall’s southern side, was a building of great interest to Garfield—the National Museum, now known as the Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries Building. Although the roof had only recently been finished and the museum would not be open to the public until October, its temporary pine floors had been laid and waxed months earlier, in anticipation of the inaugural ball it would host for Garfield that night.
Just beyond the Mall stood the painfully incomplete Washington Monument, which, in the words of Mark Twain, looked like “a factory chimney with the top broken off.” Although it had been proposed in 1783, construction had not begun until sixty-five years later. By 1854, when the monument had risen to just 152 feet, the project ran out of money, and before work could begin again, the country was plunged into civil war. Even now, sixteen years after the end of the war, the monument still sat abandoned, cowsheds erected in its shadow and sheep and pigs milling around its marble base.
When the sun emerged from the clouds at 8:00 a.m., however, glinting off the white marble and new snow, even the blunt, unfinished Washington Monument seemed dazzling and inspiring. Two hours later, Pennsylvania Avenue was finally “free from snow,” a journalist wryly noted, “if not from mud.” It was also overrun with people. “The sidewalks could not contain them,” one reporter wrote. “The crowd was so dense from the White House to the foot of Capitol Hill that they not only filled all the reserved seats, but all the windows, the sidewalks,… and much of the space of the roadway.” Those who could afford to spent anywhere from fifty cents to a dollar for a place in the roughly built tiered seating that, although “without cover and exposed to the full sweep of the keen west wind,” gave the best view of the parade route.
Determined to make up for the last inauguration, when there had been only a short procession and no inaugural ball because Hayes hadn’t been declared the winner until March 2, the city had begun planning Garfield’s procession immediately after his election. The fighting had started soon after. So bitter was the war between the various factions that President Hayes himself finally had to intervene. “The momentous question as to who shall ride the prancing steeds and wear broad silk sashes in the inauguration procession, and who shall distribute tickets of admission to the inauguration ball,” a reporter wrote mockingly, “is now in a fair way of peaceful if not happy solution.”
The moment General William Tecumseh Sherman appeared on Pennsylvania Avenue, leading the presidential procession, any lingering disappointment or wounded pride was instantly forgotten. Straight-backed,