^B00:00:13 >> John Haskell: Welcome everyone. I'm John Haskell, the director of The Kluge Center here at the Library of Congress. In the words of our charter at the Center, the Center was created quote, to reinvigorate the inner connection between thought and action through conversations and meetings with members of Congress, their staffs and the broader policymaking community in order to bridge the divide between knowledge and power. On a day-to-day basis, this means we support scholars doing innovative and specialized work and project scholarly work to a broader audience in events like this. There's material on some events we have coming up in October. I hope you'll avail yourself of that and attend. Let me tell you a little bit about our guest today, Candice Millard. She's the author of three books, each of which was a New York Times bestseller and appeared on Best Books of the Year in both the Times and the Washington Post. Her first book was The River of Doubt, Theodore Roosevelt's darkest journey. Her second was Destiny of the Republic, the subject of today's discussion. It won the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime and the PEN Center USA Award for Research Nonfiction. Her most recent book, Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape and the Making of Winston Churchill was an Indie Next pick, a top ten critics pick by the New York Times and named Amazon's number one history book of 2016. Join me in welcoming Candice to the Library. ^M00:01:40 [ Applause ] ^M00:01:47 So, Candice and I are going to talk about Garfield for about 45 minutes. I might sneak in a Churchill thing just to see if she's paying attention. But and then we'll leave about 15 minutes for questions from the audience, and there's a reception to follow right just in the back. And we hope you all will join us for that. So, James Garfield, a lot of people are coming in the door they're telling me, well, I want to learn something about Garfield. So why did you decide o write a book about him? >> Candice Millard: Well, like most Americans, unfortunately, I didn't know anything about James Garfield beyond the fact that he had been assassinated. And I wasn't necessarily interested in writing about another president. My first book had been about Theodore Roosevelt. But I was interested in writing another book that had a lot of science in it. My first book was set in the Amazon rainforest. I had worked at National Geographic. And so I wanted another subject with a lot of science. So I was actually researching Alexander Graham Bell, just doing just general research, investigative research, and I stumbled upon this story of him inventing something called an induction balance to try to find the bullet in Garfield when Garfield was shot. And I was first of all very surprised and wondering why I had never heard this before. And then secondly, I thought what was Garfield like? And so I started researching it, and my poor husband is always the victim whenever I'm working on another new story because I'm always calling him up and being like oh my God, you know, you will not believe this. And that was the case with Garfield. You know, I thought, you know, he was brilliant. He was brave. He was kind. He was decent. He was progressive, and we've completely forgotten him. And so I just fell in love with the story, and I think though that my editor was very surprised when I told him. He was like Garfield, okay. >> John Haskell: That's a testament to your persuasive powers. You got a contract for it. >> Candice Millard: Yeah, no I give him credit for saying give it a try. >> John Haskell: And how did Garfield distinguish himself before becoming president? You talk about his character, both what did he do in the public sphere. >> Candice Millard: So as you know, he was extremely poor. He was our last president born in a log cabin. His father died before he was two years old. He didn't have shoes until he was four years old in Ohio. So, in order to go to college and put himself through college, he was a janitor and a carpenter his first year. But by his second year, while he's just a sophomore in college himself, a student himself, they made him a professor of literature, mathematics and ancient languages. And by the time he was 26, he was the university's president. And then he became a member of Congress. He was a state senator. He became a member of Congress. Never, ever campaigning. He said the he was going to live by his own conscious and convictions, and if people wanted to vote for him, they could. But knowing that, you know, he was going to stick to his own ideals. So he never campaigned. He became a congressman, and he was a very, very determined and fierce abolitionist. And so obviously, when the Civil War broke out, that was the first thing he wanted to do. >> John Haskell: So what sort of congressman was he? You know, it sounds like a little more workhorse than show horse. >> Candice Millard: He was, right. So he was on several committees. It was on the Ways and Means Committee, the Appropriations Committee. He was a big advocate for hard money. But what he really cared about and what he really fought for was black suffrage. So as a young man he had hidden a runaway slave. During the Civil War he was a hero in the Union Army. He had helped to save Kentucky, a strategic state, for the Union. And he argued passionately and incredibly movingly for black suffrage on the floor of the House. And I encourage anybody to read that speech that he gave because it's so powerful and so beautiful. >> John Haskell: So, it's a little hard for me to wrap my mind around the notion of the caring gentleman, sensitive gentleman who can get a nomination for president. >> Candice Millard: Right. >> John Haskell: How the qualities you describe that he has, I mean, it can't have been that much different back. So maybe you could speak to what happened in 1880 and how somebody with those qualities could rise like that. >> Candice Millard: So he was extremely unusual in the fact that he didn't want to be president. He said that when he is, when he ends up being elected he said that this honor has come to me unsought. I never had the presidential fever, not even for a day. Because he had seen what the presidential fever had done to so many of his colleagues who had wanted it so deeply and were willing to make sacrifices to their own beliefs and ideals that he just refused to make. So what happened was there was a lot of interest in him, and people often would encourage him to run for president. He would always turn them away. And so he's from Ohio, and John Sherman is also from Ohio. John Sherman who was William Tecumseh Sherman's younger brother, and John Sherman wants to run for president. And so he realizes the best way to sort of put down this interest in Garfield is to ask Garfield to give his nominating address. So Garfield agrees, and they go to Chicago. The Republican Convention was in Chicago that year. There were 15,000 people who were there, and Ulysses S. Grant is running for a third term. And he had gotten the nomination very quickly in the past, obviously had had -- >> John Haskell: But he wasn't president at that time. >> Candice Millard: He wasn't president, right, Hayes had been president in between. But he had had a very controversial presidency, accused of a lot of corruption. So people thought, it's not going to be easy this time, as easy, but everyone assumed that he would win the nomination again. And the person who was giving his nominating address was this very colorful character, Roscoe Conkling. He was a senior senator from New York. And so Conkling gets up and he poses, you know, and everybody goes crazy and he gives this really stirring energetic speech on behalf of Ulysses S. Grant, and the whole hall is really excited. They're shouting Grant, Grant, Grant, and it's time for Garfield to get up. And he's just a very, very different person from Roscoe Conkling. And he walks up and he begins to speak, and he was such a powerful gifted speaker. And this speech was largely extemporaneous. But it's so moving and beautiful that the hall just silences. And everyone's just mesmerized, and they're listening to him. And at one point he says, so gentlemen, I ask you, what do we want? And someone in the crowd shouts, we want Garfield. And everybody just goes crazy, and he has to quiet them down so he can finish his speech. And then when the balloting begins, they're going back and forth and it's really hot and everybody's exhausted and then suddenly, somebody gives a vote for Garfield. And he stands up and he, you know, I'm not a candidate. And they didn't have my consent. And he's shouted down. And so he sits down and thinks it'll just go away. But it doesn't go away. Ballot after ballot after ballot it stays. And then suddenly somebody else, another state, gives a couple. And then another state. And then another state. And then what began as this trickle becomes a stream and a river and then this flood of votes until finally he finds himself the Republican nominee for president of the United States. >> John Haskell: Yeah, so conventions weren't quite scripted like they are now. So they're multi, because you have to get a true majority, and so there were multiple ballots. >> Candice Millard: Thirty-six. >> John Haskell: If I'm remembering right, you know, in the schisms within the Republican party, Conkling represented what were called the Stalwarts, right? >> Candice Millard: That's right. >> John Haskell: And Garfield was in the Half-Breeds? >> Candice Millard: Half-Breeds, right. >> John Haskell: But, you know, he wasn't a half-breed. What did that mean? >> Candice Millard: So yeah, there is a great rift in the Republican Party. So the Stalwarts, they were trying to protect the spoil system. And that's where they got their power, and Conkling was definitely the head of that. ^M00:10:27 And had mostly wanted Grant to win the nomination again so he could actually be in power. And then the Half-Breeds were the more progressive, and Garfield was definitely a Half-Breed. But they knew that the people who wanted Garfield to get the nomination, they knew that they would never win the presidency if they didn't have the Stalwart's support. In other words, if they didn't have Roscoe Conkling's support. So what they did was there was a man named Chester Arthur who was completely Conkling's creation. In fact, the only other position he had had before he becomes vice-president of the United States was as the controller of The New York Customs House, which was a job that Conkling had given to him through President Grant. And in that job, he made more money than the president. He never showed up for work before noon. You know, he was just, he was, again, complete opposite of Garfield. He liked fine clothes and dinner parties and wine, and he even had changed his birthdate a few years to appear more youthful. So but they tell Garfield Chester Arthur is going to be your running mate. And he didn't have any choice, they forced it on him because they're trying to appease Conkling. >> John Haskell: So it was 1880 and then ultimately he got elected president and takes office in 1881. At that time, if my history is right, you know, you're now 15 years plus after the Civil War. The Southern reaction against federal intervention on behalf of race equality was in full swing by that point in 1881. An Garfield only served, and we'll get to the assassination in a second, but Garfield only served a short period of time. You've already talked about him being an ardent abolitionist. Would a Garfield one or two term presidency have focused on race issues? I mean, what, you know, in the counterfactual world, what might have happened that would have been different? I mean it's a really critical point in American history really there. >> Candice Millard: Absolutely he would have. He was among what they called the radical Republicans who were, you know, this is the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments that they felt very strongly about. So it wasn't just abolition, it was, you know, full citizenship and full rights and suffrage so in equal rights for every citizen of the United States. And Garfield was very, very passionate and very much a part of that. He voted to impeach Johnson because of that because Johnson wanted to weaken reconstruction, and he was very unhappy with Hayes who also was going in that direction. And, you know, he would have had a fight on his hands. But there's no question in my mind having studied him that he would have fought. He would have continued to fight as president for equal rights and strengthen what Lincoln had started. >> John Haskell: Can you speculate what it would have taken to stem the tide of the Southern reaction at that time? Because, you know, the interest in those issues wasn't as great as it was, right? >> Candice Millard: Right, right. I mean it would have taken a lot. And because there was so much backlash obviously in the South, and they had started, you know, the black codes that would lead into Jim Crow. And so it would have been a vicious fight. But it's something that came to the core of his beliefs, who he'd always been, you know. He was a, you know, a very religious man. And when, you know, when John Brown had been executed, he was, you know, although he said, you know, I don't condone what he did, I understand it, you know. I understand what led him to it. And so this is something he absolutely would have fought for. And what I think is interesting about Garfield and is rare about Garfield simply because he didn't want to be president. Because he had been thrust into this role, and therefore, he wasn't beholding to anyone. He hadn't made any promises that he didn't want to make. And so he was uniquely powerful in that way. So I think he was in a position to possibly do something about it and keep the country moving in the right direction. >> John Haskell: So he's, getting back to what you said about his background, he's a poor, he grew up a poor kid. Kind of small-town farm more or less. And near Mentor, Ohio. Probably not a lot of exposure to African Americans, I would think. The big question to me then is why was somebody with that sort of background so vigorous on the issue of racial equality? What was going on there that drove him do you think? I mean it's speculative, obviously, getting into the armchair psychologist. >> Candice Millard: Right. Right, well I think, I do think part of it was his faith. And again, he was an ordained minister. It had been a big part of his childhood. But it was also his education, you know. So his mother since she was widowed so young, and he had an older brother who at 11 had to stop going to school and working on the farm. But they always knew that whatever else happened that James had to go to school. James had to be educated because he was obviously just so bright, and he had so much potential. So they scraped and saved, and they ended up giving him $17 so he could start his education. And I talked about how he then put himself through school. And so he very much so it's his heart and his soul, but it's also his mind, you know. He understands history, and he understands that education was his salvation. And he believes that it's going to be the salvation of the country, all people, all races. And in fact, that was one thing that he actually started, even though he was president for such a short time. He started working on universal education for everyone. And that's something we didn't have until, I think it was around 1918 that every state, and even then it was only elementary school education that was a right for every citizen. >> John Haskell: Do you know whether he was a suffragist too in support of women's suffrage? >> Candice Millard: I don't believe he was. But Theodore Roosevelt wasn't either. So, it took him a while. >> John Haskell: So that tells you something anyway. >> Candice Millard: Right. >> John Haskell: Sort of like where things were. A lot of the people who were the most aggressive on the race question weren't on women's equality. Let's turn to the assassination. Charles Guiteau was the assassin. What was he like? >> Candice Millard: So, Charles Guiteau was the complete opposite of Garfield. Where Garfield had found success in his life, Guiteau had found failure again and again. So he had tried law. He had failed. He had tried to start his own newspaper. He had failed. He'd even joined a free love commune where he had failed. The women in the commune had nicknamed him Charles Get Out. So, he, but in his own mind, so he was mentally ill. And his own brand of madness was delusion. So in his own mind he was meant for greatness. And so he, when Garfield is nominated president, he believes that he personally will make Garfield president, and Garfield, this is the height of the spoil system, Garfield out of gratitude then will give him, you know, the consulship to Austria. Why not? And so he just becomes more and more obsessed with Garfield. >> John Haskell: And he was, he was also instrumental in the nomination, just not in his election, right. In his mind. >> Candice Millard: Yeah, in his mind. That's right. And absolutely obsessive. >> John Haskell: And if I remember right, did he ever meet with Garfield himself to lobby for the job, or was he meeting with Garfield's, you know, assistants? Or did he get to see the president himself? >> Candice Millard: He did. So the way he survived is he, so this is, you know, at a time in our country's history when someone could just kind of disappear, and there was a lot of play in the joints. And there's no one to really hold him to account. So he would move from boardinghouse to boardinghouse to just move out when the rent was due. And, you know, he worked for a time as a bill collector, but he would just keep whatever he managed to collect. And so he -- >> John Haskell: And skip town. >> Candice Millard: Yeah, and just kept skipping town. And so he's becoming more and more sort of frayed and hungry and desperate. And he just starts following the president everywhere. And even though this is, you know, 15 years after Lincoln's assassination, there's still no protection for the president. You know, the American people thought, you know, that Lincoln's assassination was just a byproduct of war. And in our country, we get to freely elect, really choose our leaders. And so there shouldn't be any danger, shouldn't be any distance, and there shouldn't be any danger to the president. And so, you know, Garfield would walk around wherever. He had a 24-year-old private assistant, and that's it. And so, here's Charles Guiteau, he's sitting outside of the White House every day. He's going to the White House. This is also, again, the height of the spoil system. And so people believed that not only did they have a right to government jobs, even if they didn't have any background or experience for those positions, but they had a right to make their case for those jobs directly to the president himself. ^M00:20:15 So the president had to meet with office seekers personally every day from 9:30 in the morning to 1:30 in the afternoon. And it made Garfield desperate. He wondered why anyone would ever want to be president. So, Guiteau is there every single day and one day he finally does. He walks into the president's office while the president is there in his office. He also goes to, there was a reception, and he met the first lady, Lucretia Garfield, and he shook her hand. And he gave her his calling card, and he carefully pronounced his name so she wouldn't forget it. And so and one day he is sitting outside of the White House waiting for the president. Garfield walks out. He walks down the street to his secretary of state's house, and the two men walk through the streets of Washington with Guiteau following them the entire way holding a loaded gun. >> John Haskell: And then the assassination itself, where did it happen? What were the circumstances? >> Candice Millard: So, he thinks about, so he becomes obsessed, obsessed, obsessed. And he then is told by the secretary of state to stop. It's never going to happen. And then he's angry too. And then he has what he believes is divine inspiration. That God has told him that he needs to kill the president. And he says it's nothing personal. And God has told him to do this. So he thinks about, he follows him to church. He thinks about shooting him there. And then he finally, he reads in the paper that Garfield is going to go on a trip, and he's going to be in the Baltimore Potomac Train Station, which is where the National Gallery of Art stands today. So there were tracks right along the National Mall. And so when Garfield goes there on the morning of July 2nd, 1881, Guiteau is waiting in the shadows. And the moment Garfield walks in, Guiteau steps out and he shoots him twice. The first bullet goes through his arm and the second goes through his back. But by this incredible stroke of luck, it doesn't kill him. It doesn't hit any vital organs. And it doesn't hit his spinal column. It goes through the cord but not the, the column but not the cord. And he falls to the floor of this train station. >> John Haskell: So and a lot of your book is a medical story. So who tended to the president as he was struggling to recover from these injuries? And why was he the guy? >> Candice Millard: So what they do first of all is they, I mean you can imagine, you know, any environment that's more bacteria ridden than the floor of a train station. So they bring out, not concerned about that, but they bring out this old horse hay and straw mattress. And they take him upstairs to this room. And there's a doctor there, and they immediately start to probe the wound, sticking their fingers and instruments in the wound in his back. And he, some of his administration had been there at the time at the train station, including his secretary of war who was Robert Todd Lincoln. And interesting thing about Robert Todd Lincoln, he had been at his father's side when Abraham Lincoln died. Not when he was shot but when he died. And he was with Garfield when he was shot. And then 20 years later, he's with McKinley when McKinley was shot. So if you were president, you would want to send Lincoln to China or somewhere, get him out of there. But anyway, so Robert Todd Lincoln remembers that one of the doctors who had been with his father when his father died was this guy named Dr. Doctor Willard Bliss. I mean literally his first name was Doctor. And he knows that Garfield actually knew him growing up years ago, and so he sends somebody to bring Bliss in, and Bliss immediately takes over. And Bliss sees in this national tragedy this once in a lifetime opportunity for him, for his personal fame and power. So he immediately takes over the president's care, and they get him to the White House because at that time, if you were sick or injured, the last place you'd want to be is be in a hospital which is filthy and overcrowded. And so they get him back to the White House which was actually also filthy and falling apart at that time. But it's the best they had. And he immediately lets, so at that point there are like nine different doctors, of them are, again, sticking unsterilized hands and instruments into this wound. And Garfield, or I'm sorry, Bliss dismisses them all and takes charge of the president's medical care. >> John Haskell: So, and he wasn't necessarily the most, you wouldn't want him to be your physician. >> Candice Millard: Yeah, he -- >> John Haskell: One could glean that from reading your book. >> Candice Millard: Yeah, he was an unusual guy. He had actually been in prison for a little while. He had advocated something called Cundurango, which was supposed to cure like cancer, syphilis, anything. So he had had a spotty career, but he knew the right people and was determined that he was going to be the doctor in charge of the president's medical care. >> John Haskell: So you uncovered an interesting backstory. You talked at the beginning how researching Alexander Graham Bell got you into this. But so his backstory is interesting with respect to. He was already famous. How was he involved specifically or not involved enough in the treatment of Garfield? >> Candice Millard: Bliss? >> John Haskell: No, no, no, Alexander Graham Bell. >> Candice Millard: Oh, Alexander Graham Bell. So, Bliss is, you know, again, very, very much aware that the world is watching. And very concerned about his own reputation. And Garfield at first, you know, Garfield was 220 pounds, 6"2'. He was strong and healthy. And he fought off the initial infection that, you know, was dragged in with the bullet in the, you know, bits of his clothing and everything. But everybody thinks that he's going to die because Bliss had said, you know, it's gone into his liver and he's going to die. But he doesn't. He gets better, but then with this repeated probing and probing of the wound, he starts to get sick again. And it's going wrong. And so he's, Bliss is desperate. And so he reaches out to Alexander Graham Bell. And so Bell is just 29 years old at that time. He had invented the telephone just five years earlier. And he had actually left the Bell Telephone Company because he felt like it fettered him as an inventor. So he has, he had won the Volta Prize. He had some money. He has fame. He has some time now. He has all these things that he wants to do. He has all these ideas. But as soon as he hears what has happened to Garfield, he drops everything, and he starts working on something called an induction balance. So, it's basically the first metal detector. And he had originally invented years before to stop this static that was in the telephone line that was caused by telegraph lines. And so it would bow to that, and it would stop the static. But he realizes that he can use it as a metal detector. But it's completely unproven. And so he is working night and day in his laboratory, he had this little laboratory, Volta Laboratory here in Washington. And it's really interesting because when I was doing my research, I knew if you go over to the American Museum, the Smithsonian Museum of American History, they have, you know, what I call the assassination alcove, you know, you can go in and there's some presentation for each of the assassinated presidents. And in the Garfield side they have the induction balance that Bell used. And I saw it when I was doing my research. And then later on when I'm getting ready to write I think I need more information about it. So I wanted to know what kind of wood was used and what are the dimensions and things like that. So I called up one of the archivists at the museum and I asked her these questions. She said, which one? And I said what do you mean which one? And she said, we have all of the prototypes that Bell created while, because he's just inventing this out of old cloth. And he doesn't, I mean it's his reputation on the line too. You know, he's famous at this point. He doesn't know what's actually going to work on a human body. And so I was like, I'm coming back. And so I came back, and they took me down to the, you know, bowels of the museum and they brought out box after box of these induction balances. And it's just astonishing. You know, they're every shape and size, and the wires hanging off of them. And you hold them, and you can just feel his mind racing and his heart beating, and he's trying to figure out how to save the life of the president of the United States. So he gets it to a point where it does work, and he's tried it out on, you know, veterans of the Civil War who are walking around with bullets in them. And he knows that it works. And so Bliss says okay, on this date you can come to the White House and you can try it on the president. But Bliss had publicly declared that the bullet was on the right side of the president because that's where it had gone in and that's where the wound was. And so he'll only let, because he's said this and it's been in the papers, he will only let Alexander Graham Bell run this metal detector of the right side of the body. Well, the bullet was on the left. And Bell can't figure out why it doesn't work. And he gets back to his lab, and he has another idea. And he calls, he obviously had a telephone. ^M00:30:26 And the White House had one, the White House had one of the few telephones at that time. And so he calls them, and he says, you know, I have a question for you. Is it possible that the president has a mattress with metal coils, which was very rare at that time? And he did. So obviously, that's going to affect a metal detector as well. And so they say it didn't work. But the reason, the actual invention actually did work. And it was another 16 years before the invention of the medical x-ray, and so they use induction balance in the Boer War and the Russo-Japanese War on all of these wounded soldiers. And it saved a lot of lives. >> John Haskell: The last days were pretty ugly, right, for President Garfield. >> Candice Millard: Yeah, heartbreaking actually. If you ever have a chance to get to Mentor, Ohio, that's where his home is. It's now a national historic site. It's incredibly beautiful. But what will break your heart is they have his death mask. And you know, he was just a shadow of the man he had once been. He was starving to death. He was riddled with infection and just suffering unimaginably. And he knew at the end, he knew that he was going to die. And he didn't want to die in the White House. And he had always loved the sea. And there's, you know, someone offered their cottage in New Jersey. And he says, I want to go. I want to go right now. And so what they did is they took a train car and they tore everything out of it, and they set it up so they could have a bed for him. And they laid tracks, they worked, 2,000 people worked all through the night to lay a special set of train tracks that would lead the train directly up to this cottage. And all along the way, it's just really moving, all along the way there are all these Americans standing and watching this train car go by with their dying president. And again, you know, he, where Lincoln's death had only deepened the divide in our country, Garfield's brought them together because he meant something to everyone, you know, to the North, the South, to immigrants, to pioneers, to freed men who had once been slaves or been enslaved people to people who had owned slaves. You know, they all, I mean his inaugural address, he had very few people with him. He had his mother, his wife, and he had Frederick Douglass. And he gave a government position to Frederick Douglass. I mean this was so much a part of who he was. And his, this common loss brought our country together. So anyway, the train finally gets to this cottage, and it can't make it up this hill. And there are all these people standing there. And they literally push the train the last bit of the way up to this cottage, and that's where he dies. >> John Haskell: And Arthur took over the presidency when he died. Some of Garfield's legacy is tied up in his Arthur's presidency, right? >> Candice Millard: That's right. Very much so. So what was shocking to everyone, you know, nobody could imagine Chester Arthur as president, even when he got, he was, it was found that he was going to be Garfield's running mate. Even Republicans considered it a ridiculous burlesque. And so everyone assumes that Chester Arthur is eagerly waiting in the wings to become president. But the opposite actually happens, and he is devastated and grief-stricken by the assassination. And he refuses even to go to Washington for fear that it'll look like he's just waiting for Garfield to die. And he cuts off all ties with Roscoe Conkling, the person who had created him. And when Garfield does die, Chester Arthur steps up and tries to be the kind of president that Garfield would have been had he lived. And it was interesting when I did, I did a lot of research. Most of my research here at the Library of Congress, which was such an extraordinary and such a treasure for our nation, and I'll never forget when I was there and, you know, I was there for weeks and weeks. And at one point I was just going through this old microfilm and I find this letter. And it's a letter by this woman named Julia Sand, and she was an invalid, shut in. But she started to write to Chester Arthur, and she believed in him when nobody else did, when he didn't even believe in himself. And she wrote letter after letter to him. And at one point she says, I beg you not to resign. Do what is more difficult and more brave, reform. And he did. And he kept every one of her letters. And after he became president, she was at her brother's house one afternoon, and the presidential carriage pulls up. And Chester Arthur gets out to thank her in person. >> John Haskell: Why did you title it Destiny of the Republic? >> Candice Millard: Well, I went back and forth with my editor for quite a long time. We really struggled with the title for this one. And it was actually, this was his idea. And I really loved it. And it comes from, it actually comes from the nominating address that Garfield gave for John Sherman where he's talking about, it's this metaphor about, you know, all the chaos that was going on there in the convention hall and in the country. And he related it to this storm-tossed sea. He had always loved the sea. And he said, but that's not where these decisions need to be made, and that's not where they need to be made. They need to be made in the quiet and calm of every American's living room where they're talking and they're serious and thoughtful and thinking about the future of our country, the destiny of the republic. >> John Haskell: So, to wrap up a couple of quick questions. One is, for many of us in the room who haven't read the Churchill book yet, which is available here. What's your pitch? Why should we read that book? >> Candice Millard: Well, so this is a story I fell in love with because it's sort of the opposite. My book about Roosevelt is the story, something that took place after his active political career. So it was, I think, largely overlooked, the story had been. Because this one is what took place before Winston Churchill becomes Winston Churchill. So he's 24 years old, and he goes to the Boer War in South Africa to cover it as a journalist. And he's captured. And he's taken as a prison of war to Pretoria. And he escapes by himself. He makes it across almost 300 miles of enemy territory without a map, a compass, food, a weapon. He didn't speak the language, and he makes it, and he has the Boers who are humiliated and enraged and searching everywhere for him and will likely kill him if they find him. But he makes it by himself all the across to what is now Mozambique was then Portuguese East Africa. And the British were actually losing the war, to their shock and horror, were losing the war at that point. So he becomes a huge national hero. He wins his first seat in parliament, and he launches his political career. So it's really the making of Winston Churchill. >> John Haskell: That's a good pitch. Now what are you working on now? >> Candice Millard: Thank you. So, now I'm working on a story that I actually first heard when I worked at National Geographic, and it's a story of the search for the source of the Nile. And some of you may have heard it. These two guys, I'm focusing on Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke. This was the middle of the 1800s. They're very, very different. So Richard Burton was just this extraordinarily brilliant guy. He spoke 29 different languages plus another 15 dialects. His Arabic was so flawless that he was one of the first and by far the most famous people to enter the forbidden city of Mecca disguised as an Arab. And he was kicked out of Oxford. He's sort of tall and dark. He's got a big scar on his face, so he's kind of dangerous and doesn't seem British at all. And then there's John Hanning Speke who is very, very British. So he comes from this aristocratic family. He's sort of slight and blonde and blue-eyed, and he loves to hunt. And he's on leave from the British Army. And he goes to Africa to hunt, and Burton agrees to let him go on this expedition with him. And a lot, lot of horrible, horrible things happen to them along the way. But it's a story of their friendship and the betrayal of that friendship. And it builds up to this really astonishing and shocking and tragic ending. Which you'll have to read the books in a couple of years. >> John Haskell: So this event was the first in a new series that we have at the Kluge Center, the Kluge Center Author Salon. And I don't think it could have gone any better. Great start with Candice Millard. Join me in thanking her. >> Candice Millard: Thank you. ^M00:40:11 [ Applause ] ^M00:40:16 >> John Haskell: And, as you're thinking of questions, we have some mikes in the two rows. I'll identify you in a second when you have your hand up. Our next one, by the way, in the Author's Salon will be on October 22 when Evan Thomas and Ossie [phonetic] Thomas will be here. Ossie Thomas will be here on the Sandra Day O'Connor book. The lady in the second row is the first one. Try to keep the questions short because there's a lot of people's hands were up. >> Okay, my first question, and it's kind of two-part, is how long was Garfield actually president. And then what other abolitionists did he interact with other than Frederick Douglass? >> John Haskell: Great question. >> Candice Millard: So he, yeah, those are. So he was president just for six months, the last two of which he was dying. So there wasn't, he didn't get to do a lot. You know, he obviously had a lot of things he wanted to do. So he also, Blanche Bruce was somebody that he was really interested in and close to, spent a lot of time with. And so, and he worked closely with the African American community. And in fact, they, a lot of them campaigned for him, and they had songs for him. And Frederick Douglass, in particular, there's a really stirring speech that he gave supporting Garfield's presidency, and it's in the book. It's a really stirring speech and, you know, something that really impressed me that they were of two minds. >> John Haskell: We have somebody on this side had their hand up I thought. And there was a lady in the front row here who's next. >> What was happening with Mrs. Garfield during this period? >> Candice Millard: Right, so just a little bit about Lucrecia. She was really interesting. She was incredibly intelligent and actually, she had met Garfield in college, one of the few women to go to college at that time and very passionate about learning, as passionate as he was about learning. But where he was incredibly warm and like he loved his friends. He would give you a bear hug instead of a handshake, she was very, very reserved. And they had a difficult start to their marriage. But, in fact, he had an affair at one point and decided to tell her. He decided that he would rather be respected and be able to respect himself, even if he had to give up what he thought was at that time real love. But she forgave, and they slowly fell in love after years of marriage. They were deeply, deeply in love. And so she had just been very, very sick, and they thought that she was going to die. And so she was recovering, and she had gone to New Jersey to recover, and that's where she was when she found out that he had been shot. In fact, Grant was the person to come. He was also there, and he found, and he went to her to tell her what had happened. And so she took a train back to Washington that actually broke down along the way. So she finally makes it there, and she is by his side the entire time. >> John Haskell: Anything over here? This gentleman over here. >> I listened to all three books, and they're terrific. Five stars. >> Candice Millard: Thank you. >> And look, how much of next year do I have to set aside for your next book? But ignorance is bliss. I think you mention it somewhere in your book, but when you listen you don't have an index. Is this referring to Dr. Bliss, ignorance is bliss? And secondly, Graham Bell came back a second time with an improved metal detector. What went wrong that time in terms of his inability to find the bullet? >> Candice Millard: Right, so that was the same situation. So they get him off the bed with the coils, but they still will only let him go on the right side. And, you know, Bell didn't know. He didn't know it was on the left side, but he knew that he wasn't allowed. It was not until the autopsy report comes out that everyone understands and, you know, Bliss is publicly disgraced because it's immediately apparent to everyone that Garfield didn't have to die. And they understand why he did. And I'm sorry, what was the first question. >> Ignorance is bliss. >> Candice Millard: Oh, the ignorance is bliss. That, yeah, right it actually comes from a poem, and it's, the name of the poem has escaped me. But it's not that, but it is very fitting. >> John Haskell: In the early days it was ignorance is Dr. Doctor Bliss. I don't know if you knew that. There's a lady behind the pillar back here, Mike. >> I've read your book but I was just wondering, did he have any faults at all? >> John Haskell: She just talked about the adultery. >> Other than his adultery. Otherwise. >> Candice Millard: Yeah, so he used to make fun of himself. He said he had a fatal facility with words and that he was an incredibly effective speaker, but he would talk and talk and talk and talk. And so that was definitely a fault. And you know, I think that, you know, it was both a powerful thing not wanting to be president and being president, but he was very torn, you know, He was a thinker. And he was somebody who loved to learn, and he loved, he had this farmhouse in Ohio that I was just talking about. And he loved to, you know, putter around and sort of think about agriculture and spend time with his children. And so he, to him, being elected president was, it's kind of the first tragedy in his life, and he knew that he would have to give up so much, so many of the things that he loved. >> John Haskell: So we have a few more minutes if anybody else has a question for, oh there. We want to get you on tape here. >> Thank you, hi. I know you actually write about this extensively in the book, but since you didn't have time to cover it in the talk, what happened to Guiteau? >> Candice Millard: So to me at least, Guiteau's story is a tragedy in itself. Because as I said, you know, this is a time in our nation's country when it was possible to disappear. And so he had, so his mother had died when he was very young. His father was actually very cruel. But he had an older sister who loved him and tried to take care of him and understood that he needed help. But every, at every point when she would try to start the process to get him somewhere where someone could help him, he would leave again, and they wouldn't know where he was. And so he, so when he's captured and he goes to trial, and you know, you have to understand, I mean the country was in shock and incredibly grief-stricken and furious. And they wanted him to pay for taking their president. And so they, but he had the first, one of the first insanity defenses. And he said, he said, you know, I'm not crazy now, and I wasn't crazy before, but I was crazy just when I shot the president. But anyway, he is found guilty, and he's sentenced to hang. And again, just talking about research, it's another one of those moments I'll never forget. I was actually at the archives at Hiram which used to be the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute which was where Garfield first went to school and was the president and taught for a while. And I found a newspaper article talking about when Garfield, when Guiteau was in prison, and he was able to make this arrangement with his executioner. And he asked, he said he had written a poem, and he asked if he could read the poem on scaffolding before he was hanged. And he asked to choose the moment of his death. And the signal would be after he has read his poem he was going to drop the piece of paper it was on. And so he gets up on the scaffolding, and he reads his poem. It's called Going to Lordy, and he read it in a sort of strange kind of sing-songy voice. And then he dropped the paper knowing that he would then die. And so they bury him there, but then they exhume his body, and they take his brain and they divide it up into pieces. And they send it to experts around the country. And they want them to study it to see if you can see physical signs of insanity, this brain. And they all end up sending the pieces back saying he probably had syphilis, but that's all we can tell. And they put it in a jar. And that jar is still at the National Museum of Health and Medicine. And when I was researching the book, it was then the museum was in the Walter Reed, the old Walter Reed Building. And they have that. They have a section of Garfield's spine showing where the bullet went through. There's this red pin showing the trajectory of the bullet. They also have, strangely, or they did at that time, they have parts of Guiteau's skeleton. So they have like wrist bone, femur, in a drawer with parts of the skeleton of John Wilkes Boothe. So this is like an assassin's drawer. >> John Haskell: That's strange. ^M00:50:07 >> Candice Millard: But it was fascinating. But I was just telling somebody that I had this really amazing moment for me. So when I saw all these things, it was early in my research, early in the process, and it took me four years to work on this book. And so when I first saw it I thought, especially like the spine, I thought well that's interesting. That this fascinating artifact that we have from this time in our nation's history. And then fast forward four years to when the book comes out, and I'm going to be interviewed on All Things Considered, and even though it's radio they're like, let's go. I was in Washington, and they were like let's go to the museum and have them bring out the spine so you can talk about it while you're on the radio. And so I said okay. And by this time, Walter Reed had shut down. They moved the museum to this, you know, fancy new building and were just like in a conference room. You felt like you could be in any business or anything. It was very sterile. And I'm just waiting. And they open the door and they roll in this section of spine. And I think, I'm going to cry. All of a sudden, you know, he was real to me. You know, he's now, I mean I felt like I knew him. I had spent all these years studying him, and I cared about him and I respected him. And he was only 49, and he had children and he had this entire nation that had, you know, placed so much hope and trust in him. And it just never should have happened. And it just, I just felt completely different about it than I originally had. >> John Haskell: One quick last question over here. >> I had a question about the production process so to speak. The story has such an affinity with the trope of the reluctant reader and with the tragedy genre. How did you negotiate this during writing? I can imagine it was both a blessing and a curse because it A, writes easily, but B, has the trap of maybe falling into an established narrative and twitching fact. >> Candice Millard: So most of the time when I'm working on a book, I don't start writing until like the last maybe year that I, so most of it is doing research, and it's organizing that research. And then it's outlining. So I spent a lot of time with the structure. And I was just telling someone, when I was talking to my editor he said, why don't you start the book with the assassination, because that's like this dramatic moment. And I said, I don't want to because I want the reader, because so few people knew anything about Garfield, and that's all, the only thing they know about him. I want people to understand what we lost, right. They're not going to care really that he died unless they understand who he was as a person. I want them to feel what the nation felt at that time. And so, and I also wanted the sense of, so even though Garfield's going along his life and, you know, all the struggles with his administration and everything going on with this family, and he doesn't know what's happening with Guiteau. He doesn't know that there's this sort of evil coming his way. He doesn't know it, but you do. And so I wanted, that's why I kind of went back and forth with the chapters. I want you to see, you know, this fine, strong president and the danger that's coming for him. And so that's just a matter of, you know, figuring out how to tell the story. And again, I feel really strongly whenever I talk to high school students I always say I'm sorry, we have to outline. And they don't want to hear it. But I think at least for nonfiction, at least to me, I think it'd be really, really hard. Because once you start writing, then you're worrying about pacing and rhythm and word choice, and you can really get lost. So if you don't have a very clear picture of how the story is going to unfold, it gets very, very difficult. At least for me. At least the way my mind works. So that's what I do. I spend a lot of time on the outline. >> John Haskell: Well Candice, thank you so much. >> Candice Millard: Thank you very much. >> John Haskell: This was so much fun. ^E00:54:22