The enthusiasm for the new candidate now rose to its highest pitch. When the thirty-sixth ballot was called, Sherman and the Ohio delegation, with the New York anti-Grant men, led off in a grand burst of applause for Garfield. One after another the States transferred their votes to him, till at last Wisconsin completed the majority.
Before the roll was called a salute of guns was fired in the park outside, the galleries sprang to their feet, and the wildest scene of excitement followed.
Each delegation had its State banner, and, with Massachusetts at the head, an impromptu procession was formed that marched over to the Ohio delegation and placed all the standards by the side of Garfield. The military band in the hall then struck up, "Rally round the Flag," and the whole immense audience enthusiastically joined in the stirring song.
"I shall never forget," writes an eye-witness, "the expression of Garfield's face at the time that delegation after delegation was breaking from its moorings and going over to him. I scanned him with intense curiosity as he listened to the call of States, and the certain coming of his nomination. His cheeks had a flush upon them, and there was a far-away expression in his eyes as he listened to the responses of the chairman, as if he was communing with the future. I can see his face at this moment as plainly as I saw it then, and I ask myself now whether as he swept the horizon of the future with his mind's eye, could he possibly have had a glimpse of the dark apparition that was even then being invoked into life. He looked anxious, almost troubled."
When the President of the convention announced that James A. Garfield of Ohio had received three hundred and ninety-nine ballots, the majority of the whole votes cast, Senator Conkling arose and said,—
"I move that he be unanimously presented as the nominee of the convention. The Chair, under the rules, anticipated me, but being on my feet, I avail myself of the opportunity to congratulate the Republican party of the nation on the good-natured and well-tempered disposition that has distinguished this animated convention.
"I trust that the fervor and unanimity of the scenes of the convention will be transplanted to the field of the country, and all of us who have borne a part against each other here will be found with equal zeal, bearing the banners and carrying the lances of the Republican party into the ranks of the enemy."
Senator Logan followed Conkling in a similar congratulatory speech; and Eugene Hale, the defeated leader of the Blaine forces, said:—
"Standing here to return our heartfelt thanks to the many men in this convention who have aided us in the fight that we made for the senator from Maine, and speaking for them here, as I know that I do, I say this most heartily: We have not got the man whom we hoped to nominate when we came here, but we have got a man in whom we have the greatest and most marked confidence. The nominee of this convention is no new and untried man, and in that respect he is no 'dark horse.' When he came here, representing his State in the front of his delegation and was seen here, every man knew him because of his record; and because of that and because of our faith in him, and because we were in the emergency, glad to help make him the candidate of the Republican party for President of the United States,—because, I say, of these things, I stand here to pledge the Maine forces in this convention to earnest effort until the ides of November, to help to carry him to the presidential chair."
Short speeches followed from members of the other delegations and the nomination of James A. Garfield was declared unanimous.