James A. Garfield: The American Presidents Series: The 20th President, 1881 (Hardcover)

~ Ira Rutkow (Author), Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (Editor) "Saturday, July 2, 1881, was as pleasant a day as can come with an American summer weekend..." (more)
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

One of America's least remembered Presidents, Garfield (1831-1881) is convincingly but briefly sketched in this fascinating account of his life and death. Garfield was born in a Cuyahoga County, Ohio log cabin, and his father died when he was two. After a variety if menial jobs in childhood, a rigorous determination to be educated, and a short stint as a Civil War officer, Garfield embarked on a a Congressional career. The intricacies of post- Reconstruction politics dominated his stint there, as well as his presidential campaign, and Rutkow gives an accomplished narrative of the debates of the day. What sets this book apart from other accounts is its its rigorous analysis of the assassination attempt, and the attendant medical mishandlings which led to his death a mere six months after taking office in January of 1881. Rutkow (Bleeding Blue and Grey: Civil War Surgery and the Evolution of American Medicine) is a clinical professor of surgery; he offers a brilliant summary of contemporary medical practices, and chronicles the decline of the President's health with informative (if gory) exactness. The material of the final third of the book is clearly the area of Rutkow's expertise, and the vibrant details and analysis contained there is what makes this an unorthodox but ultimately intriguing example of minor Presidential biography.
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From Booklist

James A. Garfield was part of a string of generally forgotten, late-nineteenth-century presidents bookended between war hero U. S. Grant and charismatic Teddy Roosevelt. His was one of the briefest administrations; the second murdered president, he died (1881) only six months after assuming the office. This latest entry in the American Presidents series is by an unexpected author, a professor of surgery. Consequently, what is not unexpected is his emphasis on medical practice: specifically, the cause and protraction of Garfield's dying--as reconstructed here, truly a horror story. The author cogently tracks the ambitious Garfield's life from Ohio farm boy, to college student and teacher, to scholar, to politician, and to president. Garfield's lengthy death struggle, following his shooting in a Washington, D.C., train station, stemmed from widespread infection, a direct result of unclean doctor's fingers and instruments. As Garfield lay for weeks on what would be his deathbed, "he was rotting from the inside out." Although Garfield's "accomplishments as president were few," he did hold the supreme office in the land and thus deserves this sensitive biography. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Times Books; 1 edition (May 30, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080506950X
• ISBN-13: 978-0805069501
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #62,170 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Garfield's Lost Legacy Explored, July 27, 2006

By	Craig M. Farnham (Waterbury, CT USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Once again I found myself enjoying the strange politics of America's Gilded Age as I was introduced to a man who, up to this point, had remained a dim figure in my mind: someone who was famous only for his very short term as one of this nation's Chief Executives. It turns out that James A. Garfield did exist, and he was more than a footnote in history. He was a leading Republican (always a party man) who stood for a brief moment as the chosen voice of "the people" (or at least the voice of a very splintered Republican party).

Party politics was the defining, big-picture issue as Garfield came into the Presidency. Following U.S. Grant's term, which was tarnished by scandals, the men who held the highest office were by necessity forced to discuss (if not actually devote themselves to) civil service reform. Of course this only led to further deal-making and intrigue as both parties (a demoralized Democratic party that hadn't had a president in the White House since Andrew Johnson, and a Republican party at odds with itself over which faction should be in control) tried to vie for offices of importance. Enter James A. Garfield, a man who would, by his assassination, become a martyr to civil service reform.

All this is easily found in most grade school history books though. What the author, Ira Rutkow, does in this fine biography is outline not only the political forces at work behind the rise and fall of the Garfield presidency, but the conditions of American medicine at the time...conditions that directly impacted the death of America's 20th President. The chapters that immediately follow the attempt made on Garfield's life examine the care he was given by his doctors and the unsanitary methods used (methods that, as a reader, I found both interesting and grueling). One wonders how Garfield would have faired had he lived in a later century.

Mr. Rutkow has done a very good job of bringing this unknown, little-remembered president back to life, if only for awhile. "For who was Garfield," Thomas Wolfe asked, "and who had seen him in the streets of life?" Here, finally, we have an answer.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Garfield: A Presidency Unfulfilled, July 9, 2006

By	T. Whalen (Voorhees, NJ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In the grade school litany of the names of our nation's leaders, James Garfield does not even merit a pause. Amidst Washington, Adams, Jackson and Lincoln, then Roosevelt and Eisenhower later, the twentieth President gets little more in even High School U.S. History than does Pierce or Fillmore. Yet he was a complex and accomplished individual, a General in the Army and a most skilled politician.

Rutkow is a physician, and an accomplished author. He brings the eye of the surgeon to the treatment of the President after the assassination attempt while concisely reviewing his early life and run to the presidency with aplomb. At a time when the subject of errors in medicine is much with us, it is sobering to read of the "treatment" of the highest elected official. Rutkow validly makes the point that President Garfield was not simply maltreated: he was killed by the physicians watching over him, primarily one eclectic and ego-driven surgeon. Had Garfield suffered the same bullet wound in 2006 he might have been discharged from the emergency room and lived to a ripe old age.

Beyond this tome, the entire "American Presidents" series edited by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. now numbers 33 volumes and is a collective treasure providing brief but well written biographies of the men who have led our country.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A presidency that never was, September 19, 2009

By	Steven A. Peterson (Hershey, PA (Born in Kewanee, IL)) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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James Garfield is probably best known for being assassinated early in his presidency and then suffering a lingering death. It is a shame that this person is so little known. His story is that of an American success (Horatio Alger spoke of him as a model of "poor boy makes good"). But we will never know how good (or mediocre) he would have been as president. There are signs that he could have been another in a long line of mediocrities (he seemed sometimes loath to make people unhappy and appears to have sometimes caved to pressure). Still, he also had some strengths (good knowledge of budget and finances).

The book opens by noting his background, coming from poor circumstances, working as a canal boatman for awhile. Going to school and "pulling himself up by the boot straps." Poor boy ended up graduating from an elite Eastern college. He became interested in politics at that point. After a brief stint as a teacher, he was elected to the Ohio Senate in 1859 (the youngest member) as a Republican. When the Civil War broke out, he volunteered and ended up being William Rosecrans' Chief of Staff, where he performed capably. During his military service, he was nominated to run for Congress as a Republican from Ohio. After the disaster at Chickamauga, he ran and won the election and ended his military career (he ended up being promoted to major general at the end of his service, pretty remarkable--and a sign of the political connections he had developed, for instance, with Salmon Chase).

He was a radical Republican and often at odds with President Lincoln. He became a leader in the House for the Republican Party. He worked hard. There were a few times that he stumbled into ethically compromising situations, but the author tends to think that he was sometimes blind to appearances and was not, in fact, corrupt. There follows the story of his rise in the party, his nomination in 1880 as the Republican candidate as a "dark horse," when the leading figures could not get enough votes to garner the nomination.

Then, his election. He agonized over selecting his Cabinet, and the process was ugly, with him sometimes giving in to pressure and other times exerting himself. He managed a very nice fiscal triumph. However, after only a handful of months in office, he was shot by Charles Guiteau. And then--what a story. Medical incompetence led to a slowly deteriorating condition, where he suffered for months until he expired.

Part of the strength of this work is the American medical profession at a turning point--with old-line doctors not keeping up with developments in medical science (such as antiseptic treatment of wounds) versus junior physicians adopting new methods, Unhappily, Garfield was treated by old-line doctors who contributed mightily to his death.

Another brief biography in the American Presidents series. Don't know anything about James Garfield? Here's a nice brief introduction to his career.