From Canal Boy to President; Or, the Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield

"It was my privilege to talk for hours with Gen. Garfield during his famous trip to the New York conference in the late canvass, and jet it was not conversation or discussion. He fastened upon me all the powers of inquisitiveness and acquisitiveness, and absorbed all I had learned in twenty years of the politics of this State. Under this restless and resistless craving for information, he drew upon all the resources of the libraries, gathered all the contents of the newspapers, and sought and sounded the opinions of all around him, and in his broad, clear mind the vast mass was so assimilated and tested that when he spoke or acted, it was accepted as true and wise. And yet it was by the gush and warmth of old college-chum ways, and not by the arts of the inquisitor, that when he had gained he never lost a friend. His strength was in ascertaining and expressing the average sense of his audience. I saw him at the Chicago Convention, and whenever that popular assemblage seemed drifting into hopeless confusion, his tall form commanded attention, and his clear voice and clear utterances instantly gave the accepted solution.

"I arrived at his house at Mentor in the early morning following the disaster in Maine. While all about him were in panic, he saw only a damage which must and could be repaired. 'It is no use bemoaning the past,' he said; 'the past has no uses except for its lessons.' Business disposed of, he threw aside all restraint, and for hours his speculations and theories upon philosophy, government, education, eloquence; his criticism of books, his reminiscences of men and events, made that one of the white-letter days of my life. At Chickamauga he won his major-general's commission. On the anniversary of the battle he died. I shall never forget his description of the fight—so modest, yet graphic. It is imprinted on my memory as the most glorious battle-picture words ever painted. He thought the greatest calamity which could befall a man was to lose ambition. I said to him, 'General, did you never in your earlier struggle have that feeling I have so often met with, when you would have compromised your future for a certainty, and if so, what?' 'Yes,' said he, 'I remember well when I would have been willing to exchange all the possibilities of my life for the certainty of a position as a successful teacher.' Though he died neither a school principal nor college professor, and they seem humble achievements compared with what he did, his memory will instruct while time endures.

"His long and dreadful sickness lifted the roof from his house and family circle, and his relations as son, husband, and father stood revealed in the broadest sunlight of publicity. The picture endeared him wherever is understood the full significance of that matchless word 'Home.' When he stood by the capitol just pronounced the President of the greatest and most powerful of republics, the exultation of the hour found its expression in a kiss upon the lips of his mother. For weeks, in distant Ohio, she sat by the gate watching for the hurrying feet of the messenger bearing the telegrams of hope or despair. His last conscious act was to write a letter of cheer and encouragement to that mother, and when the blow fell she illustrated the spirit she had instilled in him. There were no rebellious murmurings against the Divine dispensation, only in utter agony: 'I have no wish to live longer; I will join him soon; the Lord's will be done.' When Dr. Bliss told him he had a bare chance of recovery, 'Then,' said he, 'we will take that chance, doctor.' When asked if he suffered pain, he answered: 'If you can imagine a trip-hammer crashing on your body, or cramps such as you have in the water a thousand times intensified, you can have some idea of what I suffer.' And yet, during those eighty-one days was heard neither groan nor complaint. Always brave and cheerful, he answered the fear of the surgeons with the remark: 'I have faced death before; I am not afraid to meet him now.' And again, 'I have strength enough left to fight him yet'—and he could whisper to the Secretary of the Treasury an inquiry about the success of the funding scheme, and ask the Postmaster-General how much public money he had saved.

"As he lay in the cottage by the sea, looking out upon the ocean, whose broad expanse was in harmony with his own grand nature, and heard the beating of the waves upon the shore, and felt the pulsations of millions of hearts against his chamber door, there was no posing for history and no preparation of last words for dramatic effect. With simple naturalness he gave the military salute to the sentinel gazing at his window, and that soldier, returning it in tears, will probably carry its memory to his dying day and transmit it to his children. The voice of his faithful wife came from her devotions in another room, singing, 'Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah.' 'Listen,' he cries, 'is not that glorious?' and in a few hours heaven's portals opened and upborne upon prayers as never before wafted spirit above he entered the presence of God. It is the alleviation of all sorrow, public or private, that close upon it press the duties of and to the living.

"The tolling bells, the minute-guns upon land and sea, the muffled drums and funeral hymns fill the air while our chief is borne to his last resting-place. The busy world is stilled for the hour when loving hands are preparing his grave. A stately shaft will rise, overlooking the lake and commemorating his deeds. But his fame will not live alone in marble or brass. His story will be treasured and kept warm in the hearts of millions for generations to come, and boys hearing it from their mothers will be fired with nobler ambitions. To his countrymen he will always be a typical American, soldier, and statesman. A year ago and not a thousand people of the old world had ever heard his name, and now there is scarcely a thousand who do not mourn his loss. The peasant loves him because from the same humble lot he became one of the mighty of earth, and sovereigns respect him because in his royal gifts and kingly nature God made him their equal."

Chapter XXXVI—The Lessons Of His Life

Probably the nearest and closest friend of Garfield, intellectually speaking, was his successor in the presidency of Hiram College, B.A. Hinsdale. If any one understood the dead President it was he. For many years they corresponded regularly, exchanging views upon all topics that interested either. They would not always agree, but this necessarily followed from the mental independence of each. To Mr. Hinsdale we turn for a trustworthy analysis of the character and intellectual greatness of his friend, and this he gives us in an article published in the N.Y. Independent of Sept. 29, 1881:

"First of all, James A. Garfield had greatness of nature. Were I limited to one sentence of description, it would be: He was a great-natured man. He was a man of strong and massive body. A strong frame, broad shoulders, powerful vital apparatus, and a massive head furnished the physical basis of his life. He was capable of an indefinite amount of work, both physical and mental. His intellectual status was equally strong and massive. He excelled almost all men both in the patient accumulation of facts and in bold generalization. He had great power of logical analysis, and stood with the first in rhetorical exposition. He had the best instincts and habits of the scholar. He loved to roam in every field of knowledge. He delighted in the creations of the imagination—poetry, fiction, and art. He loved the deep things of philosophy. He took a keen interest in scientific research. He gathered into his storehouse the facts of history and politics, and threw over the whole the life and power of his own originality.

"The vast labors that he crowded into those thirty years—labors rarely equaled in the history of men—are the fittest gauge of his physical and intellectual power. His moral character was on a scale equally large and generous. His feelings were delicate, his sympathies most responsive, his sense of justice keen. He was alive to delicate points of honor. No other man whom I have known had such heart. He had great faith in human nature and was wholly free from jealousy and suspicion. He was one of the most helpful and appreciative of men. His largeness of views and generosity of spirit were such that he seemed incapable of personal resentment. He was once exhorted to visit moral indignation upon some men who had wronged him deeply. Fully appreciating the baseness of their conduct, he said he would try, but added: 'I am afraid some one will have to help me.'

"What is more, General Garfield was religious, both by nature and by habit. His mind was strong in the religious element. His near relatives received the Gospel as it was proclaimed fifty years ago by Thomas and Alexander Campbell. He made public profession of religion before he reached his twentieth year and became a member of the same church, and such he remained until his death. Like all men of his thought and reading, he understood the hard questions that modern science and criticism have brought into the field of religion. Whether he ever wrought these out to his own full satisfaction I can not say. However that may be, his native piety, his early training, and his sober convictions held him fast to the great truths of revealed religion. Withal, he was a man of great simplicity of character. No one could be more approachable. He drew men to him as the magnet the iron filings. This he did naturally and without conscious plan or effort. At times, when the burden of work was heavy and his strength overdrawn, intimate friends would urge him to withdraw himself somewhat from the crowds that flocked to him; but almost always the advice was vain. His sympathy with the people was immediate and quick. He seemed almost intuitively to read the public thought and feeling. No matter what was his station, he always remembered the rock from which he had himself been hewn. Naturally he inspired confidence in all men who came into contact with him. When a young man, and even a boy, he ranked in judgment and in counsel with those much his seniors.

"It is not remarkable, therefore, that he should have led a great career. He was always with the foremost or in the lead, no matter what the work in hand. He was a good wood-chopper and a good canal hand; he was a good school janitor; and, upon the whole, ranked all competitors, both in Hiram and in Williamstown, as a student. He was an excellent teacher. He was the youngest man in the Ohio Senate. When made brigadier-general, he was the youngest man of that rank in the army. When he entered it, he was the youngest man on the floor of the House of Representatives. His great ability and signal usefulness as teacher, legislator, popular orator, and President must be passed with a single reference.

"He retained his simplicity and purity of character to the end. Neither place nor power corrupted his honest fiber. Advancement in public favor and position gave him pleasure, but brought him no feeling of elation. For many years President Garfield and the writer exchanged letters at the opening of each new year. January 5th, last, he wrote:

"'For myself, the year has been full of surprises, and has brought more sadness than joy. I am conscious of two things: first, that I have never had, and do not think I shall take, the Presidential fever. Second, that I am not elated with the election to that office. On the contrary, while appreciating the honor and the opportunities which the place brings, I feel heavily the loss of liberty which accompanies it, and especially that it will in a great measure stop my growth.'

"March 26, 1881, in the midst of the political tempest following his inauguration, he wrote: 'I throw you a line across the storm, to let you know that I think, when I have a moment between breaths, of the dear old quiet and peace of Hiram and Mentor.' How he longed for 'the dear old quiet and peace of Hiram and Mentor' in the weary days following the assassin's shot all readers of the newspapers know already.

"Such are some main lines in the character of this great-natured and richly-cultured man. The outline is but poor and meager. Well do I remember the days following the Chicago Convention, when the biographers flocked to Mentor. How hard they found it to compress within the limits both of their time and their pages the life, services, and character of their great subject. One of these discouraged historians one day wearily said: 'General, how much there is of you!'

"Space fails to speak of President Garfield's short administration. Fortunately, it is not necessary. Nor can I give the history of the assassination or sketch the gallant fight for life. His courage and fortitude, faith and hope, patience and tenderness are a part of his country's history. Dying, as well as living, he maintained his great position with appropriate power and dignity. His waving his white hand to the inmates of the White House, the morning he was borne sick out of it, reminds one of dying Sidney's motioning the cup of water to the lips of the wounded soldier. No man's life was ever prayed for by so many people. The name of no living man has been upon so many lips. No sick-bed was ever the subject of so much tender solicitude. That one so strong in faculties, so rich in knowledge, so ripe in experience, so noble in character, so needful to the nation, and so dear to his friends should be taken in a way so foul almost taxes faith in the Divine love and wisdom. Perhaps, however, in the noble lessons of those eighty days from July 2d to September 19th, and in the moral unification of the country, history will find full compensation for our great loss.

"Finally, the little white-haired mother and the constant wife must not be passed unnoticed. How the old mother prayed and waited, and the brave wife wrought and hoped, will live forever, both in history and in legend. It is not impiety to say that wheresoever President Garfield's story shall be told in the whole world there shall also this, that these women have done, be told for a memorial of them."

1

I have seen it somewhere stated that when a Congressman at Washington he retained his interest in the game of base-ball, and always was in attendance when it was possible, at a game between two professional clubs.