until 1967, when it finally ratified the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. The amendment had been spurred by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy four years earlier.
30 Finally, Blaine sent a cabinet member: Ackerman, Dark Horse, 421.
31 “Disappoint our fears”: Julia Sand to Chester Arthur, August 27, 1881, Chester Arthur Papers.
32 “Dear Mother”: Garfield to his mother, August 11, 1881.
33 “I wonder”: Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James A. Garfield, 2:1193.
34 He dreamed of returning: “Longing to Be at Lawnfield,” New York Times, August 21, 1881.
35 “I have always felt”: Garfield, Diary, June 19, 1881, 4:613.
36 “It would not now be prudent”: Medical Bulletin, August 25, 1881.
37 “It’s all right now”: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 68.
38 Lucretia had been so sick: Seale, The President’s House, p. 526.
39 “banished despair”: Evening Star, August 1881.
40 “one prolonged, hideous nightmare”: Stanley-Brown, “My Friend Garfield,” 101.
41 “despair,” a reporter noted: Evening Star, August 1881.
42 Brown rarely left the White House: Sunday Herald, July 5, 1881; Evening Critic, July 19, 1881.
43 “During all this terror, hope, despair”: Evening Critic, July 15, 1881.
44 “until control of her voice”: Stanley-Brown, “My Friend Garfield,” 101.
45 “anguished face”: Ibid.
Chapter 21: After All
1 Although he had returned: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 347.
2 “strong and healthy little fellow”: Gray, Reluctant Genius, p. 222.
3 “Little boy born prematurely”: Bell to his father, August 15, 1881, Bell Family Papers.
4 “Nothing will ever comfort me”: Bell to Mabel Bell, December 12, 1885, Bell Family Papers.
5 After his son’s funeral: Tainter, “Home Notes,” 37.
6 Just three days after Edward’s death: Tainter, “Home Notes,” 37. Bell’s attachment for the induction balance was, in Tainter’s words, “an electrical attachment to be made to the ordinary exploring needle so that when the point of the needle touched the bullet it would be indicated upon a telephone placed in the circuit.”
7 Bliss refused to let Tainter: Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, 347.
8 “Heartless science”: Bell, “Science and Immortality,” The Christian Register Symposium, 96.
9 “stopped the proceedings immediately”: McCabe, Our Martyred President, 592.
10 In the city, it was 90 degrees: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 57.
11 “Well,” he said, “is this the last day”: Bliss, “The Story of President Garfield’s Illness,” 302.
12 “No, no,” he said: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 80.
13 At two o’clock the next morning: Ibid.
14 “in the hope”: Crook, Through Five Administrations, 274.
15 The train, which pulled four cars: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 80.
16 The president’s car, number 33: Ibid.; Clark, The Murder of James A. Garfield, 105.
17 “determine,” Bliss explained: Bliss, “The Story of President Garfield’s Illness,” 302.
18 It was, she would later write, “the saddest”: Edson, “The Sickness and Nursing of President Garfield,” 620.
19 “by no strange hands”: Bliss, “The Story of President Garfield’s Illness,” 302.
20 “A last token of amity”: Crook, Through Five Administrations, 274.
21 The train ride to Elberon: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 81.
22 “No sound of bell or whistle”: Bliss, “The Story of President Garfield’s Illness,” 303.
23 “At every station”: Ibid.
24 “It was indeed”: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 82.
25 When the train finally reached Elberon: United States v. Guiteau, 124.
26 “I am willing that you should ruin”: Brown, The Life and Public Services of James A. Garfield, 241.
27 Before the train could reach: Ackerman, Dark Horse, 425.
28 “Instantly hundreds of strong arms”: Bliss, “The Story of President Garfield’s Illness,” 303.
29 When he was carried into his room: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 84.
30 “This is delightful”: Ibid., 89.
31 “Throughout his long illness”: Rockwell, “From Mentor to Elberon.”
32 When Bliss told him that a fund: The fund had been started by Cyrus W. Field, an American financier who helped found the Atlantic Telegraph Company, the first company to attempt to lay a telegraph cable across the Atlantic. The fund for Lucretia eventually reached $350,000. She used it not only to live on and to send her children to college, but to help establish Garfield’s library, the first presidential library, in their home in Mentor.
33 “What?”: Bliss, “The Story of President Garfield’s Illness,” 301.
34 “Doctor, you plainly show”: Ibid., 303.
35 “from a labor and responsibility”: Medical Bulletin, September 8, 1881, 6:00 p.m.
36 “clearer road to recovery”: Quoted in Clark, The Murder of James A.