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

Indianapolis, Sept. 6.—Religious services were held, in obedience to the Governor’s proclamation, in a number of the leading churches to-day, and prayers were offered in behalf of the President. Many of the business houses were closed from 10 to 12 o’clock.

Cleveland, O., Sept. 6.—Business was generally suspended throughout Northern Ohio between 10 o’clock and noon to-day, while people of all denominations gathered in their houses of worship, in town and country, and joined in prayer for the restoration of President Garfield to health.

The sixty-eighth day.—On the following day, the 7th of September, there was still no positive change in the President’s condition. The early morning dispatches announced: “He is no worse than when he left Washington, neither is he any better.”

Such a statement was, of course, quite unsatisfactory to the country, because, the people argued, “no better” always means “worse.” There is no neutral ground in a case of this kind. The morning bulletin found the pulse at 106; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 18. In the evening the pulse was 108; temperature, 101; respiration, 18. The day was very warm, the thermometer ranging from 90° to 100°, and the people were remarkably anxious over the reports of the physicians. When it was learned that after the issue of the evening bulletin, the pulse ran up to 114, there was wide-spread apprehension. The gentle sea-breezes, from which so much was expected, were not doing their appointed work. For most of the day there was a dead calm of the atmosphere at Long Branch, and the temperature was described as almost unbearable by people in health. To the sufferer it was wonderfully oppressive, and there were apprehensions that, unless change of temperature in an abatement of the furnace-like heat soon came, there would be reason to conclude that the journey of Tuesday was in vain. Every body complained but the President. He proved himself the most patient of invalids, and but once during the entire day made a remark which indicated any thing like discontent with the situation. Opening his eyes from a short nap, he turned them toward the windows and said to an attendant, who was fanning him: “Oh, those windows are so small.” For a few moments he breathed laboriously, and his pulse increased to a high rate, and the reaction caused unusual weakness.

Throughout the day the bulletin-boards at the various newspaper offices, and places of public resort in every part of the country, were besieged by large crowds of anxious men and women of every grade in the social scale, eager for the smallest scrap of information to sustain the earnest prayer of their hearts—that the revered President was now upon the sure course of recovery; but all the facts reported by the physicians pointed to a calamitous result. Only their comments were encouraging, and whatever of encouragement they conveyed was not accepted by the mind of science. It was seen that the President’s bravery had imparted a strange degree of assurance to his immediate attendants, whose reports were unconsciously colored by the mental force rather than the physical condition of the sufferer; and thus at least nine-tenths of his fellow-countrymen were buoyed up with hopes which had no foundation beyond the tenacity of a gigantic will.

The sixty-ninth day.—So wonderful was the exercise of the President’s mental force that on Thursday two of his medical attendants announced his convalescence! Surgeon-General Barnes, Surgeon J. J. Woodward and Dr. Robert Reyburn had been relieved from duty at Garfield’s bedside on the previous day, at the wish of the President, as he expressed it, “to relieve them of labor and responsibility which, in his improved condition, he could no longer properly impose upon them.” Drs. Bliss and Hamilton remained in their professional capacity, and Dr. Boynton, Mrs. Garfield’s physician, in the capacity of nurse. Between nine and ten o’clock, on the morning of the eighth, a newspaper correspondent said to Dr. Bliss:

“Doctor, you seem to be feeling pretty well this morning.”

“I should think I was; why, the man is convalescent; his pulse is now down to ninety-six.”

This announcement was astounding, but as the correspondent was endeavoring to settle in his own mind whether the doctor was not a little delirious himself, as a result of long watching and continued nervous tension, he turned to some persons who approached, and was soon asserting to them with emphasis, “This is convalescence.” The good news traveled with marvelous speed. “Dr. Bliss says the President is convalescent,” was soon on every lip, but was received with incredulity.

“We had better wait awhile before we toss up our hats,” was the comment of a member of the Cabinet.