Nesmith Library

Destiny of the Republic, a tale of madness, medicine and the murder of a president, Candice Millard

eng

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non fiction

Destiny of the Republic

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Candice Millard

a tale of madness, medicine and the murder of a president

James A. Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and an admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he fought the corrupt political establishment. Then, four months after his inauguration, a deranged office-seeker shot him in the back. But the shot didn't kill him. What happened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in turmoil. The event 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 struggle for power--over his administration, over the nation's future, and over his medical care. A team of physicians administered shockingly archaic treatments, to disastrous effect. As his condition worsened, Garfield received help: Alexander Graham Bell worked around the clock to invent a new device to find the bullet.--From publisher description

Prologue: Chosen -- Promise -- The scientific spirit -- Providence -- "A beam in darkness" -- God's minute man -- Bleak mountain -- War -- Hand and soul -- Real Brutuses and Bolingbrokes -- Brains, flesh, and blood -- Casus belli -- The dark dreams of presidents -- "A desperate deed" -- Fear -- "Thank God it is all over" -- "It's true" -- All evil consequences -- Blood-guilty -- Tortured for the republic -- Neither death nor life -- One nation -- "Keep heart" -- On a mountaintop, alone -- Terror, hope, and despair -- After all -- All the angels of the universe -- Forever and forever more