Said another Southern Journal: "In his death, mournful as it is, the sections will evince a common sympathy that may cement more closely the bonds of that fraternity so essential to the keeping of the compact between the States. North, South, East and West will join in the grief over the grave of the dead President—a sure sign that the currents of the national life flow as strong as they ever did in the history of the Union."
The New Orleans Times said: "Throughout our whole land parties stand disarmed, and citizens bitterly deplore the death of James A. Garfield. Henceforth he lives in memory, and though he was permitted to accomplish but little during his presidential service, by his death he has given to his countrymen a deeper scrutiny into themselves—a most precious service."
The Picayune, after referring to the assassination of President Lincoln, said: "This is a sadder story in our national life. It was Garfield's fortune to come to the high office of chief magistrate at a time when peace and prosperity reigned throughout the broad confines of this great land. There was naught but sincere respect for his authority among the masses, and earnest wishes in the hearts of nearly all her citizens that his administration might prove a happy one for himself as it promised a prosperous one for the country. He was worthy of so proud a position, and in his inaugural proclaimed the new life of a nation united not in name but in truth."
CHAPTER XLIV.
Extracts from some of the President's Private Letters to a Friend in Boston, bearing the same Family Name.—To Corydon E. Fuller, a College Classmate.
One of the last letters written by President Garfield was to a gentleman in Boston, who bore the same family name. They were warm friends and mutually interested in the Garfield genealogy. They had often spoken of the pleasure they would take in going over the country in the neighborhood of Boston, where their common ancestors had had their homes, and they had agreed, should chance ever bring them together here, to take a little excursion, and as the President was about starting on a New England tour, the letter related to the long anticipated pleasure. If possible, the President was to take leave of his formal escort at Concord and enjoy a quiet buggy drive with his friend, keeping perfectly incognito. They were to visit the scenes of interest at Concord, where the President's great-uncle, Abram Garfield, from whom he gets his middle name, stood, perhaps, shoulder to shoulder with John Hoar, the grandfather of the chairman of the Republican convention at Chicago which so unexpectedly nominated him for his fateful office. Thence they were to drive through Lincoln, Weston, Waltham and Watertown—towns where the homes of their ancestors and kinsmen had stood. At Watertown the intention was to rejoin the regular party.
The letter was evidently written late on the evening before he was shot, and was in the handwriting of the President's private secretary, but bore the clear signature of J. A. Garfield. It was not sent from Washington until after Guiteau's shot had been fired, for it bore the postmark of 1 P. M. General Garfield had had considerable correspondence with his friend about family matters, and his letters formed the basis of much of the accurate article on his family genealogy printed in the Herald shortly after the Chicago convention. In a letter he wrote:—
"You can hardly imagine the pleasure which your letter of the 3d inst. has given me. You will better understand why, when I tell you the causes which have so nearly shut me off from any knowledge of my ancestry. My father moved into the wild woods of Ohio before he was twenty years of age, and died when he was thirty-three, and of course when all his children were small, and I, the youngest, but an infant. Separated thus from the early home of our father, we had but scanty means of obtaining anything like accurate information of his ancestry. The most I knew, until quite recently, were the family traditions retained in the memory of my mother, as she had heard them from father and his mother. During the last eighteen years I have, from time to time, picked up fragmentary facts and traditions concerning our family and its origin. Many of these traditions are vague and no doubt worthless, but I have no doubt they have some truth in them. One of them is that the family was originally from Wales. This tallies with what you say concerning the original Edward Garfield coming from the neighborhood of Chester, Eng. I stood on the walls of Chester a little more than four years ago, and looked out on the bleak mountains of Wales, whose northern boundary lay at my feet, along the banks of the Dee. Possibly I was near our ancestral home. A Welsh scholar told me, not many years ago, that he had no doubt our family was connected with the builders of an old castle in Wales, long since in ruins, but still known as Gaerfill Castle. I give you this conjecture for what it is worth. While I was in college at Williamstown, Mass., in 1854 to 1856, I went down to old Tyringham and Lee, in Berkshire County, Mass., and there found a large number of Garfields, some twenty families, old residents of that neighborhood. Among them were the names Solomon and Thomas, which seemed to have continued along in the family. I found that they had come from the neighborhood of Boston. In an old graveyard in Tyringham (now Monterey) I found the tombstone of Lieutenant Isaac Gearfield (for that, I learn, was the early spelling of the name), and on the stone was recorded 1755 as the date of his death. The family told me that he (Lieutenant Isaac) crossed the mountains into the wilderness of western Massachusetts in about 1739, and slept the first night under his cart.... I am sure I do not need to apologize to you for this long letter, for if it gives you half the pleasure yours has given me, you will not tire of its length. I beg you to write me any further details you may possess, and any you may hereafter obtain."