History of Buchanan County, Iowa, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 121

Author: Williams bros., Cleveland, pub. [from old catalog]; Riddle, A. G. (Albert Gallatin), 1816-1902
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, Williams brothers
Number of Pages: 574

USA > Iowa > Buchanan County > History of Buchanan County, Iowa, with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 121

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The influence of Garfield on Rosecrans was very great. Better for all had it been entire. Crittenden and McCook commanded two of the three corps in the great

battle of Chickamauga- battle of blood, glory, and dis- aster. The armies in array were seventy thousand Con- federate and fifty-five thousand Union soldiers. Thomas commanded on the left and McCook the right. It is said Garfield wrote every order on this field save that fatal one to Wood, which he did not see. This in effect induced him to break the line of battle, and with his division take a position in the rear of another. Long- streut saw the blundering gap, and launched the impet!1- ous Hood into it. The battle on the right was lost. The whole wing crumbled and dissolved, and McCook's whole corps, panic-stricken, fled, a swarm of frightened wretches, back to Chattanooga.

The tramping flood of mere human beings, reft of reason, caught the general and chief-of-staff in the rush. One eye-witness says that the conduct of the two men, stripped in an instant of all power to command by the dissolving of the charm of discipline, was superb. Gar- feld, dismounted, with his figure above the surging mass, and his resonant voice heard above the din, seized the colors from the fleeing bearer, who had instinctively borne them off, planted them, seized men to the right and left, faced them about, and formed the nucleus of a stand, shouting his ringing appeals in the dead ears of the unhearing men, reft of all human attributes, save fear. A panic is a real disease, which for the time nothing can stay. His exertions were vain. The mo- ment he took his hands from a man he fled. The fleeing tide swept o.). With a hasty permission from his chief, Garfield turned away to where the thunders of Thomas' guns proclaimed the heart of the battle to beat fiercest, and against whom the enemy had concentrated his heaviest battalions. If the weakest-pressed wing had been thus crushed, what might be the fate of the left? Thomas was not MeCook. While Garfield, with a few staff-officers and orderlies, went to warn and aid Thomas, the general, with firmness and coolness, hurried to Chat- tanooga to gather up, preserve, and reorganize the atoms of McCook's corps.

Garfield's mission was by a long and perilous ride, crossing the lines of the fleeing and their pursuers, hav- ing an orderly killed on the way. Finally, almost alone, he reached Thomas, half-circled by a cordon of fire, and explained the fate of the right. He informed him how he could withdraw his own right, form on a new line and meet Longstreet, who had turned Thomas' right and was marching on his rear. The movement was promptly made, but the line was too short to reach ground that would have rendered it unassailable save in front. At that time Gordon Granger came up with Steadman's division,

1 6

LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD.

met Longstreet at the opening thus left, and, after a fear- ful struggle, forced him back. Thomas, the army and its honor, with the soil of the disaster on the right, were saved. It is said as night closed on that awful day, with the warm steam of blood from the ghastly wounded and recently killed rising from the burdened earth, Garfield and Granger, on foot, personally directed the loading and pointing of a battery of Napoleons, and sent their shot crashing after the retiring foe, and thus closed the battle of Chickamauga.

What there was left of the Union army, was left in possession of the field. The battle was fought Septem- ber 20, 1863. After a few weeks, Garfield was sent on to Washington with dispatches - too late to save his honored chief. His best skill and ability had from his arrival at Rosecrans' headquarters been interposed, first to save him from his own pungent temper, and then from its consequences with the department at Washing- ton, where, with the aid of maps, he made a most mas- terly expose of all of the movements of the army of the Cumberland. Montgomery Blair, one of the most sa- gacious observers and judges of men at the capital, was filled with astonishment and admiration at its clearness, force, and completeness. "Garfield," said he, to a per- sonal friend to whom he related the occurrence, "Gar- field is a great man."

General Garfield, on his arrival at Washington, found himself a full major-general of volunteers, "for gallant and meritorious conduct at the battle of Chickamauga."

One curious transaction, occurring while Garfield was connected with the army of the Cumberland, has never to my knowledge transpired in history, or in any form. It is within the memory of the well-informed that during one or two years, including quite the whole of 1863, there was a strong, decided, and almost bitter feeling of hostility to President Lincoln, personally, on the part of the leading radicals, in and out of Congress-a condem- nation of his policy and management, and a lack of con- fidence in his ability and strength of character. It is known that Mr. Greeley shared this sentiment to the full- est extent. He and the rest naturally felt the greatest anxiety to secure the best possible man as Lincoln's suc- cessor in 1864, and it was largely due to the difficulty of procuring a candidate that induced these men silently, and sullenly, to acquiesce in the instinctive choice of the masses, who demanded his renomination at Balti- more. The brilliant qualities of Rosecrans, and the fame of the battle of Stone River, drew their eyes to him as the possible man on whom to fix and bring for- ward; and Edmund Kirk,* a writer of some ability and

shrewdness, was sent forward with letters to Garfield-in whose judgment they had confidence-with instructions to remain at headquarters, observe, gather up opinions, learn the views of the chief of-staff, and, if all concurred, Rosecrans was to be approached, sounded, and his ac- quiescence in the plan secured if possible.

The clear, sagacious mind of Garfield saw the futility and probable evil consequences of the project at once. He gave it such emphatic discouragement that it is be- lieved no whisper of it ever reached Rosecrans, or any considerable number of men not in the secret. These reasons he urged among others: that it would be ruinous to the usefulness of his general; that it could not suc- ceed; that it ought not to. Kirk was convinced, and the idea was abandoned. He, however, cultivated the ac- quaintance of Garfield, to whom, like most men, he was strongly drawn, and managed, in various conversations -in which Garfield is the frankest of men-to draw from him something of his early life.

As a consequence, not long after, there appeared "The Patriot Boy," by Trowbridge. Of the hero of this pleasant novel the friends of General Garfield had little difficulty in recognizing the one intended.

The military career of General Garfield ends here. A year before, in his absence, the people of his congres- sional district desired, of all things, to place him in the house, and they elected him. Ordinarily, this would have been gratefully acquiesced in; now it came to break a high, brilliant, possibly a great career in arms, where, in his judgment, he could be equally and perhaps the more useful. As a matter of ambition, the sacrifice was great. He was a full major-general, with the largest confidence of the secretary of war, was the idol of the men he commanded, had the entire confidence of the army, save some of the "seventeen generals" of the army of the Cumberland, perhaps, and at that time the promise of a continuance of the war was of the largest. Easily he saw that no man could in the glitter and splen- dor of arms, and the names and fames they made and marred, with which the land was filled, made for himself a name in congress; that the executive was substantially the government ; that congress was but a committee of ways and means, and all its powers went but to swell, strengthen, and sustain the executive arm. Mr. Lincoln wanted the aid of his fresh, strong, sagacious intellect in the house. Backed by his fame in arms, he would be a power. He urged and implored him to change his field of labor; and, judge of man, as he was, and hopeful of a speedy end of the war, he foresaw that, whatever might be the aid derived immediately from the young general's turning civilian, his ultimate field was there.

* Kirk was his nom de plume. His real name was Gilmore.

PERSONAL, CHARACTERISTICS.

Garfield acquiesced. He seems scarcely ever to have controlled his own destiny.

CHAPTER IV.

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS.

Partial Estimate of His Character .-- Exactions of Friends .- Lacks Egoism .-- Had He a Plan of Life .- No Lack of Moral Courage .- The Wade-Davis Manifesto .- Faces a Frowning Convention. - Re- sult .- His Growth on the Public .- Fears of Being Named for the Presidency Prematurely .- Marriage.

The oft-expressed purpose of this sketch to present a personal view of General Garfield, rather than a meagre history, must be taken as accomplished here. Few lives present richer or more varied and attractive material to the biographer. The opportunity to write a complete life, it is hoped, will not be presented to any man of this generation. The people of Geauga and Lake have him with them. His public life is their property, one of their most valuable possessions. They know his history as well as I do. I have brought forward, from the early, uncertain past, so much of it as will enable them some- what to realize his qualities and capacity for service, and help to some appreciative judgment of his stature and position, so difficult to estimate in his presence. Never, till a man can be drawn against a background of the past, when he and all his surroundings have become subject to the law of perspective, and the light about him has become cold and pure, can a historian draw him with accuracy of judgment.

One or two things I may venture further, and mainly in the light of my own narrative, and somewhat in answer to a question asked by friends of the subject of it. "What is the lack in Garfield? What is the thing wanting?" Not large and obvious, or what it is, as well as its absence, would at once be seen. Some little thing wanting to completeness; a lack felt, not seen, hard to define, yet a coming short of the perfection demanded of him. And, then, instances are mentioned where he has unexpectedly failed, in that he has not met the demand of the occasion, or of his friends' expectations as is claimed; and in a most baffling and unsatisfactory way, a half-score of times. It has been defined as a lack of moral courage, and ere the words have ceased came some exhibition of that attribute or quality pure and simple.

More than once it has appeared in the course of this narrative, if such it may be called, that important changes have occurred in Mr. Garfield's career without much in- telligent action on his part, when the matter was seem-

ingly within his control. Men are hardly willing to allow that he could be guilty of fault of judgment, or hesitate from not clearly seeing the right. His failures may not be covered with these charities. In his own and in the affairs of the public there is an unwillingness to credit him with common fallibility, and charge it to the common account of the weakness of human nature. So well endowed is he that he should want in nothing, even that little thing so small and uncertain as to elude identity and escape detection. I do not believe in human per- fection. I may only query for this puzzling lack. I go back to this recent remark, that his life, however rich and varied, has lacked the unity of seeming design, or that sort of continuity indicative of plan adhered to, either of which argues possible lack or superabundance.

His one passion was the sea. For its indulgence he toiled and schemed, if this last word will apply to the mental processes of such a man. When that was fully given up, not overcome, he turned himself to acquire an education. Yet why, in the ordinary philosophy of life, is the mystery. The son of wealth may be educated, merely because his father is rich, and desires he should have the polish of culture. Garfield was poor, and must make his own way. What did he propose to do with his learning when acquired? What use would he make of himself when educated? It looks much as if, when brought to face this problem, with the stimulus of a strong, eager, hungry mind he pushed into and pushed on from that logical sense of completeness which he early exhibited. So it would seem that he became a teacher because it was there to be done; he found pleasure in it, excelled in it, but found in time that whatever his pro- gramme was, it did not embrace a college professorship, and so of his preaching. Clearly he studied law by de- sign. If it was with any intention of pursuing it as a calling, it has never in any considerable degree been ad- hered to. He tries cases occasionally, and well, in the supreme court of the United States. I do not believe that he entered public life to make of it a trade, a call- ing, or a profession, and I think he has constantly in- tended or expected to retire from it. A man often intends the opposite of what he expects. In short, to a superficial observer, his life, rich and varied, seems rather the result of his surroundings, which he has not resisted, but, with a remarkable adaptability, has turned himself largely and readily into new channels. Why didn't he defeat the salary bill? An answer, two or three of them, can be given without involving any lack of quality or faculty. I am now referring to another thing, which brings this matter of lack to an issue, where some reply is called for. Why don't he lead his party in the house ?

LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD.

Long service, rare ability, complete mastery of all the essentials,-position included, quickness, temper, per- sonal bearing, absence of enmities, all unite. The reins trail carelessly through the hall, are thrown over his desk repeatedly, are sometimes in his hands, and admirably used on occasion. Why don't he take them firmly as his, assert himself, be the man he is, and make the most of it? Why, indeed? That is the question.

Why did he not carry off the Seventh Ohio regiment? Why did he permit himself to be appointed lieutenant- colonel of the Forty-second, when he might as well have been full colonel? Why has he not grasped the Ohio senatorship, or done half a score of things for the not doing of which he is complained of?

He is not a self-seeker, never has been. By nature he cannot be. His lack is egoism, if the absence of that quality is a lack ; and whenever or wherever that element, if such it is, of men's nature enters into the subject of action, he will be apt to take that course from which it is absent, or the least involved. If, other things being nearly equal, a course is open to him which he can take without self-assertion, he will take it. So of that notable case of the salary bill. If all the other considerations were equal, self-assertion, not courage nor firmness, for they were rather needed for the course he pursued; but self-assertion, egoism, the thing I, was the thing to defeat it, and hence the bill passed. That setting of oneself up above all others is not much in his nature, no vestige of arrogance. Courage of the chivalrous order-spirit abundant, but to set himself up, claim for himself, which this involves-is certainly not much in him.

Let his party, formally or informally, elect him leader, and see what will come of it. They would have to do it spontaneously.

As bearing on this delicate matter, which I touch with gentle hand, one incident in Mr. Garfield's early con- gressional career may be mentioned. The Wade-Davis manifesto of 1864, containing so much truth, yet so actually revolting to the Republican masses, was a sore thing with them, and for a time cast a cloud even on Mr. Wade.

The Republican convention in Garfield's district had assembled in Warren to nominate his successor in con- gress. It wanted to nominate him. It was said that he had not condemned the manifesto; on the contrary, quite justified it. If there was anything predetermined in that body, it was a unanimous condemnation of that paper. And Garfield, and no other man who upheld it, could receive a nomination at its hands. It was in trouble. It loved him. It would compromise, would do anything but approve that paper. It sent a committee to his ho-

tei, and respectfully asked his views, certain that he would in some way accommodate himself to their requirements, at least enough to permit his re-nomination. There were not wanting friends to advise some little show of conces- sion. Here was a chance for that lack in the man to help him out. The general went in looking a little grave, took the stand, and, in a ringing, proud, half-defiant speech of twenty minutes, approved the manifesto and justified Wade. Amid the silence of the blank amaze- ment of the convention he strode haughtily out. A spirited young delegate, seeing the silent dismay of the elders, arose with "By George ! the man that has the cour- age to face a convention like that, deserves a nomina- tion," and moved it by acclamation. Ere the feet of the retiring congressman had passed the outer threshold, the building shook with the thundering acclaim that declared him tre nominee. That people have little faith in his lack of courage of any kind.

Rare and varied as has been the career of this gentle- man, one phenomenon has attended both himself per- sonally, and the estimation of him by the public,-a steady, rapid, uninterrupted growth. Not only has he been tried in many fields, in all of which he has easily and assurcdly excelled, but the man has steadily devel -. oped, broadened, deepened, and risen in intellectual qualities and excellence, and now, at forty-seven is evi- dently making as steady an advance in healthful mental growth as at any time since known to the public. Men- tal old age will come late to him ; probably not at all. He may even overcome the unknown defect in character or mind, or what it proves to be, by sheer growth.

Compare him with any man who entered public life at about the same time, with all of them for that matter, or with any man at the period of his carecr corresponding with the years of Garfield's public life, and who of them has ever attained a wider regard and confidence, and with so few drawbacks, forfeitures, and blemishes of record? Has there ever been a time when his position before the country was so steadily and rapidly growing as now?

I foresee but one danger ; it springs from no defect of character, but the peril of being named by some super- serviceable friend, or ingenious enemy, for an unnamed place prematurely. I believe him too well poised to be personally injured. Let the future provide for him as has the past. He may leave himself in the hands of the fates or forces which have been so kind to him. But the impression that he, or they, or it were shaping things for any special elevation of him would greatly impair his ad- vance in the public confidence and esteem, and render him less useful.

CONGRESSIONAL LIFE.

Mr. Garfield, in his professor days, was joined in mar- riage with Lucretia, daughter of Zeb. Rudolph, of Hiram, a lady of rare excellence of character, charm of person and manner, alike loved and admired at the capital as in the country. They have a promising family of sons, with one daughter, an attractive cottage and farm in Mentor, a pleasant, modest residence in Washington.

CHAPTER I. CONGRESSIONAL LIFE.

The House of Representatives is the Governing Body .- Its Character. -Conditions of Success Compared with the Senate .- Leading Men of the House .- Old Members, Colfax, Stevens, and others. - Remark- able Influx of New, Strong Men,-Blaine, Creswell, Boutwell, Wind- ham, Allison, and others .- Garfield's District.

In December, 1863, Garfield entered the house of representatives of the congress of the United States, the governing branch of the legislature of the Republic. Largely the most numerous, so it is the most popular and interesting of the two houses, with a character, laws, tra- ditions, spirit, and usages, peculiar to itself. Its mem- bers the most approachable and often the least dignified and unassuming of men, the house, as a body, is the most despotie, severe, and awful, in its conceptions of its own dignity, and in its bearing toward those who offend it, or who attempt anywhere, at any time, to in- vade its sanctities, or infringe upon the privileges of its members. At times the noisiest and most unruly of as- semblages, it always knows what it is about, and never departs far or tarries long from the line of its duties, as it esteems them.

No deliberative body pretending to dispute by rule, ever attempted to govern itself by a code of laws and rules so complex and artificial, and it remains to be seen whether greatly the new rules adopted at its last session, are an improvement. As a business body it partakes largely of the infirmities of all popular assemblages. It has its times of intelligence, order and work, and its days of doing nothing, when its leaders make haste to ad- journ, and betake them to their committee rooms, where more and more its share of the legislative work of the Republic is done. It has already reached that size, when an increase of its numbers would diminish its working capacity. Its average of intellectual capacity greatly varies. One believes on the whole that with the passing years there is a steady advance in this respect, as in the individual character of its members. It always has a fair share of the best minds, but there never was a house that, as a whole, did not greatly resemble a body of ordinary

men, and never a day, when the presence in it of a large number, was not a wonder to the thoughtful observer. Common as it appears, a stranger is in danger of greatly underestimating the intelligence of the house. There always are minds of a high order, which by common eon- sent, and unconsciously to the average man, direct it, and lead him along the route of safe, and often of wise and enlightened, legislation. An observer for a considerable period comes finally to regard the house as a huge body of immense forces, full of grand instinets and capable of noble impulses, never clearly seeing, often groping and sometimes going wrong, but which on the whole slowly moves on the line of human advance.

While the average of intellect is not much above the good common, the house never fails unerringly to know its own men. Sham and pretenee never impose upon it for a moment. It will not tolerate dullness and stupidity. It good-naturedly sets apart days for them, and goes home. It knows what it wants, and when found, it appreciates and cherishes the giver. Every man soon takes his proper place, finds his rank, and always at his merit. The house is not a great admirer of eloquence, and is never tiekled with sound. To it the mere maker of speeches, is the most useless of men, if not the great est of bores. The time is long past for a man to make a reputation by a speech on the floor, and the house often differs with the country in its estimate of its own man. Whatever may be a man's reputation at home in eity or country, he has none at the capital, and whatever may have been his position there, he begins in the ranks here. There is now no harder place in the world of men, of contest and labor, to make a reputation, win a place, than in the American house of representatives. Less ability and tact, will win fame in the senate. Of all the distinguished men now in that body, there are not five, not educated in the house, who, if transferred to it, would ever again be heard of. The conditions of the house, the nature of its service, its laws and usages, its very size and numbers, its traditions and temper, make it the most difficult and trying ordeal to which a man can be subjected. Ability alone cannot master it ; will and force of character do not conquer it. Genius is powerless in its presence. Steadiness, intelligence and integrity, with time enough, will win, as they do every- where. But when time depends on the caprice of a constituency, it is seen how seldom this element lends itself to any man's advance.

Into this body, at a few days past thirty-two years of age, this man, of whom the reader now has a good idea, entered, to take his place in the mass of the unknown and untried representatives, beginning where all begin,

LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD

and winning, as all must win. To sketch his personal career in that body, to present it with brief reference to his connection with leading measures, is all that can be done, and that imperfectly.

To write him up with breadth, and bring out his grow- ing influence on legislation and politics, would be to write the political history of the country, from mid war to the present. We know, in advance, that this large- brained, large-hearted, large-souled man, with his great capacity for the best work, his immense vitality, warm magnetism, and decided personality, will not linger in the undistinguished herd, nor do any but the best and most work; that sooner or later must largely influence, if not control measures.

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History of Buchanan County, Iowa, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 121

Author: Williams bros., Cleveland, pub. [from old catalog]; Riddle, A. G. (Albert Gallatin), 1816-1902 Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Cleveland, Williams brothers Number of Pages: 574

Author: Williams bros., Cleveland, pub. [from old catalog]; Riddle, A. G. (Albert Gallatin), 1816-1902
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, Williams brothers
Number of Pages: 574