Description:

Garfield James



James Garfield Hours Before Death, "The condition of the Prest this morning continues unfavorable."

[GARFIELD ASSASSINATION], Autograph Manuscript on verso of Western Union Telegraph Company blanks, September 19, 1881, [Elberon, New Jersey]. 1 p., 8.125" x 14.75" Sheet formed from pasting three telegram blanks together. Small edge chips and crease tears, not affecting text; browning.

 

Complete Transcript

Official Bulletin

Sept 19. 9.30 AM.

            The condition of the Prest this morning continues unfavorable. Shortly after issue of the evening Bulletin he had a chill lasting 15 minutes. The febrile rise following continued until midnight during which time the pulse ranged from 112 to 130. The sweating that followed was quite profuse.

            The cough which was troublesome during the chill gave him but little annoyance remainder of night. This morning 830 Temp 98 8/10 Pulse 106 and feeble. Respn 22.

At 830 another chill come on on account of which the dressing was temporarily postponed.

A Bulletin will be issued 1230 PM.

 

Historical Background

After President James Garfield was shot by disappointed office-seeker Charles Guiteau on July 2, 1881, his medical condition became important national news. Thanks to the network of transcontinental telegraph lines, the details of his temperature, diet, and emissions became a part of the daily news. In fact, the decline and death of Garfield may have been America’s first live media event.

 

Garfield was at the White House from July 2 to September 6, but he insisted on a transfer to a sea cottage in Elberon, New Jersey. On September 7, the President was transported by train some two hundred miles from Washington to the Francklyn Cottage in Elberon, thirty miles south of New York City.

 

This manuscript telegram from the morning of his death brings the immediacy of that story strikingly to life. It is dated September 19 and timed at 9:30 a.m. According to newspaper accounts, it was signed by Dr. Doctor Willard Bliss (1825-1889) and Dr. David Hayes Agnew (1818-1892), and this draft may have been written by one of them. Bliss was an expert in ballistic trauma, but he probed Garfield’s bullet wounds with his unsanitized fingers and metal probes, and his treatments were likely more responsible for Garfield’s death than the original gunshot wound. He also took charge of Garfield’s treatment, dismissed Dr. Jedediah Baxter, the President’s personal physician, and excluded most other doctors except Agnew and Dr. Frank Hamilton. Agnew was a professor of anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania and the chief consulting surgeon on the Garfield case.

 

Thirteen hours after this telegram was issued, Garfield was dead.

 

 

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) was born in Ohio and raised by his widowed mother. After attending an academy and a Disciples of Christ college, he graduated from Williams College in 1856.  He served in the Ohio Senate before raising a regiment in 1861, which he led as its colonel. Promoted to brigadier general at the age of 30, Garfield participated in the Battle of Shiloh. He later became chief of staff for General William S. Rosecrans. In 1862, he won election as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served until 1880. Elected to the U.S. Senate by the Ohio legislature in January 1880 for a term starting more than a year later, Garfield became an early choice of the Republicans for the Presidency. Elected over fellow Civil War veteran and Democratic candidate Winfield Scott Hancock by fewer than 2,000 votes, Garfield took office in March 1881. Less than four months into his presidency, Garfield was shot twice by a disappointed office seeker on July 2, and died eleven weeks later.

 

 



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