One day four years ago, however, I found much more than I had ever expected. Most of the time, after doing a little research, I quickly come to a dead end. To me, that’s the best part of being a writer-following an idea to see where it leads. In everything I read, I am always looking for the thread of an idea, something that surprises me, and leaves me wanting to know more. What made me want to write this book, however, was not what I knew about President Garfield-that he had been shot by a deranged man in the summer of 1881-but all that I did not. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title.Īt the heart of Destiny of the Republic is the story of the assassination of President James Garfield. Meticulously researched, epic in scope, and pulsating with an intimate human focus and high-velocity narrative drive, The Destiny of the Republic will stand alongside The Devil in the White City and The Professor and the Madman as a classic of narrative history. As his condition worsened, Garfield received help: Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, worked around the clock to invent a new device capable of finding the bullet. A team of physicians administered shockingly archaic treatments, to disastrous effect. The unhinged assassin’s half-delivered strike shattered the fragile national mood of a country so recently fractured by civil war, and left the wounded president as the object of a bitter behind-the-scenes struggle for power-over his administration, over the nation’s future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care. The drama of what happened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in turmoil. But four months after his inauguration, a deranged office seeker tracked Garfield down and shot him in the back.īut the shot didn’t kill Garfield. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the corrupt political establishment. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president.

Destiny of the republic book