The Life and Work of James A. Garfield, Twentieth President of the United States / Embracing an Account of the Scenes and Incidents of His Boyhood; the Struggles of His Youth; the Might of His Early Manhood; His Valor As a Soldier; His Career As a Statesman; His Election to the Presidency; and the Tragic Story of His Death.

by John Clark Ridpath

The battle was now fairly on. The Democracy had, on the 23d day of June, in convention at Cincinnati, nominated as their standard-bearer the distinguished and popular soldier, Major-General Winfield S. Hancock. This nomination was received by the General’s party with as much satisfaction and enthusiasm as that of General Garfield had been by the Republicans. Meanwhile, General James B. Weaver, of Iowa, had been chosen to make the race by the National party, in a convention held in Chicago, on the 9th of June. So that there were presented for the suffrages of the people three eminent soldiers—all men of large abilities, undoubted patriotism, and thorough soundness of character. It was evident, however, from the opening of the campaign, that the contest was narrowed to Generals Garfield and Hancock, with the chances in favor of the former; and as the public mind became warmed up to the pitch of battle, the chances of Garfield were augmented by almost every incident of the fight. The platforms of the two parties had both been made with a view to political advantage rather than to uphold any distinctive principles. So the fight raged backwards along the line of the history and traditions of the two parties rather than forward along the line of the living political issues of the present and the future. In a modified form the old questions of the war were revived and paraded. A delegate in the Cincinnati Convention, allowing his zeal to run away with his sense, had pledged a “Solid South” to the support of General Hancock. This sectional utterance was a spark dropped among the old war memories of the Union soldiers; and the politicians were quick to fan the flame by suggesting that “a Solid South” ought to be confronted by “a Solid North.” This line of argument, of course, meant ruin to the Democracy. The Republican leaders virtually abandoned the Southern States, and concentrated all their efforts upon the doubtful States of the Northern border. Indiana became a critical battle-field; and here the political fight was waged with the greatest spirit. Having a gubernatorial election in October, it was foreseen that to carry this doubtful State would be well nigh decisive of the contest, and to this end the best talent of both parties was hurried into her borders. While these great movements were taking place, General Garfield remained, for the most part, at his quiet home at Mentor. On the 3d of August he attended the dedication ceremonies of a soldiers’ monument at Geneva, Ohio. More than ten thousand people were in attendance. After the principal address of the day had been delivered, General Garfield was introduced, and spoke as follows:

LAWNFIELD.—THE HOME OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD AT MENTOR.

“Fellow-citizens, Ladies and Gentlemen: These gentlemen had no right to print on a paper here that I was to make a speech, for the types should always tell the truth. [A voice—They did it this time.] They have not done it in this case; but I can not look out upon an audience in Ashtabula County, recognizing so many old faces and old friends, without at least making my bow to them, and saying ‘good-bye’ before I go. I can not either hear such a speech as that to which I have just listened without thanking the man who made it [applause] and the people who enabled him to make it [applause], for after all no man can make a speech alone. It is the great human power that strikes up from a thousand hearts that acts upon him and makes the speech. [Applause.] It originates with those outside of him, if he makes one at all, and every man that has stood on this platform to-day has had a speech made out of him by you and by what is yonder on your square. That’s the way speeches are made, and if I had time to stay long enough, these forces with you might make one out of me. [Applause.] Ideas are the only things in the universe really immortal. Some people think that soldiers are chiefly renowned for courage. That is one of the cheapest and commonest qualities; we share it with the brutes. I can find you dogs and bears and lions that will fight, and fight to the death, and will tear each other. Do you call that warfare? Let me tell you the difference. They are as courageous as any of these soldiers, if mere brute courage is what you are after. The difference between them and us is this: Tigers never hold reunions [laughter] to celebrate their victories. When they have eaten the creature they have killed, that is the only reunion they have ever held. [Laughter.] Wild beasts never build monuments over their slain comrades. Why? Because there are no ideas behind their warfares. Our race has ideas, and because ideas are immortal, if they be true, we build monuments to them. We hold reunions not for the dead, for there is nothing on all the earth that you and I can do for the dead. They are past our help and past our praise. We can not add more glory, and we can give them no immortality. They do not need us, but forever and forever more we need them. [Applause.] The glory that trails in the clouds behind them after their sun has set, falls with its benediction upon us who are left [applause], and it is to commemorate the immortality of the ideas for which they fought, that you assemble to-day and dedicate your monument, that points up toward God who leads them in the glory of the great world beyond. Around these ideas, under the leadership of these ideas, we assemble to-day, reverently to follow, reverently to acknowledge the glory they achieved and the benediction they left behind them. That is the meaning of an assembly like this, and to join in it, to meet you, my old neighbors and constituents, to share with you the memories that we have heard rehearsed and the inspiration that this day points to, that this monument celebrates, is to me a joy, and for it I am grateful to you.”

Immediately after this address at Geneva, General Garfield took his departure for New York, where it had been determined to hold a conference of the principal Republican leaders, relative to the conduct of the pending campaign. The standard-bearer participated in the council of his friends, adding not a little by his presence and unflagging spirits to the zeal and enthusiasm of those upon whose efforts so much depended. On the 7th he left the city for Lake Chautauqua, where he had decided to spend a day at the great Sunday-school encampment and other lakeside resorts. He was received with the greatest good-will by the thousands assembled at Jamestown and Chautauqua; and on the eve of his departure was induced, in response to salutations and cheers, to make the following brief address:

“Fellow-citizens: You have done so much to me since I arrived on this shore, that I am quite unable to tell what sort of man I am this morning. [Laughter.] I had never been here, and really did not know what you were doing. Last evening I asked Mr. Vincent, rather brusquely, to tell me what Chautauqua means—what your work here means—and he filled me so full of your ideas that I have not yet assimilated it so as to be quite sure what manner of man I am since I got hold of it. But this I see, you are struggling with one of the two great problems of civilization. The first one is a very old question—‘How shall we get leisure?’ That is the object of every hammer stroke, of every blow that labor has struck since the foundation of the world. [Applause.] The fight for bread is a great primal fight, and it is so absorbing a struggle that until one conquers to some extent he can have no leisure. We may divide the struggles of the human race into two chapters: First, the fight to get leisure, and, second, what to do with our leisure when we have won it. It looks to me that Chautauqua has solved the second problem. [Applause.] Like all blessings, leisure is a very bad thing unless it is well used. The man with a fortune ready made, and with leisure on his hands, is likely to get sick of the world, sick of himself, tired of life, and to become a useless, wasted man. What shall you do with your leisure? I understand Chautauqua is trying to develop new energies, largeness of mind and culture in a better sense, ‘with the varnish scratched off,’ as our friend, Dr. Kirkwood, says. [Applause.] We are getting over the fashion of painting and varnishing our native woods. We are getting down to the real grain, and finding whatever is best and most beautiful in it, and if Chautauqua is helping to develop in our people the native stuff that is in them rather than to give them varnish and gewgaws of culture, it is doing well. Chautauqua, therefore, has filled me with thought, and, in addition to that, you have filled me with gratitude for your kindness and for this great spontaneous greeting in early morning, earlier than men of leisure get up. [Laughter.] Some of these gentlemen of the press around me looked distressed at the early rising by which you have compelled our whole party to look at the early sun. [Laughter.] This greeting on the lake slope toward the sun is very precious to me, and I thank you all. This is a mixed audience of citizens, and I will not offend the proprieties of the occasion by discussing controverted questions or entering upon any political discussion. I look in the faces of men of all shades of opinion, but whatever our party affiliation, I trust there is in all this audience that love of our beneficent institutions which makes it possible for free labor to earn leisure, and for our institutions to make that leisure worth something [applause]—our Union and our institutions, under the blessing of equal laws, equal to all colors and all conditions, an open career for every man, however humble, to rise to whatever place the power of a strong arm, the strength of a clear head, and the aspirations of a pure heart can do to lift him. That prospect ought to inspire every young man in this vast audience. [Applause.] I heard yesterday and last night the songs of those who were lately redeemed from slavery, and I felt that there, too, was one of the great triumphs of the Republic. [Applause.] I believe in the efficiency of the forces that come down from the ages behind us, and I wondered if the tropical sun had not distilled its sweetness, and if the sorrow of centuries of slavery had not distilled its sadness into verses, which were touching, sweet verses, to sing the songs of liberty as they sing them wherever they go. [Applause.]

“I thank that choir for the lesson they have taught me here, and now, fellow-citizens, thanking you all, good-bye.” [Applause.]

On the 9th of the month General Garfield returned to his home, where he again sought a respite from the uproar and tumult of publicity which followed him everywhere. On the 25th of August, a reunion of his old regiment, the Forty-second Ohio, was held at Ashland, and the General could but accept an invitation to share the occasion with his former comrades in arms. The old soldiers passed a resolution, declaring it an honor that their former Colonel had become the conspicuous man of the nation, and commending him to the world as a model of all soldierly virtues. He was elected President of the Regimental Association for the ensuing year, and was thereupon called out for an address. The General spoke as follows:

“Fellow-citizens: This is a family gathering, a military family, for in war a regiment is to the army what a family is to the whole civilized community. [Here a portion of the platform fell.] A military reunion without some excitement and some accident would be altogether too monotonous and tame to be interesting, and in this good-natured audience we can have a good many accidents like that and still keep quiet and be happy.

“I said this is a family reunion, an assembly of the Forty-second military family, and it is well for us to meet here. Nineteen years ago I met a crowd of earnest citizens in that court-room above stairs. Your bell was rung, your people came out. The teacher of your schools was among them. The boys of the school were there, and after we had talked together a little while, about our country and its imperiled flag, the teacher of the schools offered himself to his country, and twenty of his boys with him. They never went back into the school-house again; but in the dark days of November, 1861, they and enough Ashland County boys to make one hundred went down with me to Columbus to join another one hundred that had gone before them from Ashland County, and these two hundred of your children stood in the center of our military family and bore these old banners that you see tattered before you to-day. One of them was given to our family by the ladies of Ashland, and Company C, from Ashland, carried it well. It was riddled by bullets and torn by underbrush. Flapped by the winds of rebellion, it came back tattered, as you see, but with never a stain upon its folds, and never a touch of dishonor upon it anywhere; and the other of these banners was given us by the special friends of Company A, in my old town of Hiram, the student company from the heart of the Western Reserve, and it also shared like its fellows, the fate, and came home covered with the glory of the conflict.