James A. Garfield

In addition, Ira authored eight influential books, including his latest Empire of the Scalpel, The History of Surgery, which came out in 2022 and was an editor's choice in the New York Times Book Review.

His other notable works include Seeking the Cure, A History of Medicine in America, James A. Garfield, part of Times Books American Presidents series edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Bleeding Blue and Gray, Civil War Surgery and the Evolution of American Medicine, American Surgery and Illustrated History, Surgery and Illustrated History, named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and a two-volume bibliography, The History of Surgery in the United States, 1992 and 1988.

He was not only a prolific author, but also served as an editor for multiple surgical textbooks and contributed numerous articles to professional journals.

Ira's achievements earned him several prestigious awards, including the American Medical Writers Association Medical Book Award in 1998 and the Fletcher Pratt Literary Award of the Civil War Roundtable of New York 2005.

Unlike the usual portrait, an old man in Berlin, this presents him as a young man in Prussian uniform traveling on the Andes.

We desire to express our grateful acknowledgments to the Smithsonian Institution, the Honorable William H. Seward, Honorable James A. Garfield of Washington, to Cyrus W.

Field, Esquire, and William Pitt Palmer, Esquire, of New York, to C.P. Williams, Esquire, of Albany, to Reverend J.C. Fletcher, now United States Consul at Apoorto, to Chaplain Jones of Philadelphia, to Dr. William Jameson of the University of Quito, to J.F. Reeve, Esquire, and Captain Lee of Guayaquil, to the Pacific Mail Steamship Panama Railroad and South Pacific Steam Navigation Companies, to the officers of the Peruvian and Brazilian steamers on the Amazon, and to the eminent naturalists who have examined the results of the expedition.

Note.

Only those who know the hard toil of a raw American township can have any idea what that really means.

a farmer's work in america is not like a farmer's work in england the man who occupies the soil is there at once his own landlord and his own labourer and he has to contend with nature as nobody in england has had to contend with it for the last five centuries at least he finds the land covered with trees which he has first to fell and sell as timber then he must dig or burn out the stumps clear the plot of boulders and large stones drain it fence it plough it and harrow it build barns for the produce and sheds for the cows in short make his farm instead of merely taking it this is labour from which many strong men shrink in dismay especially those who have come out fresh from a civilized and fully occupied land for a woman and a boy it is a task that seems almost above their utmost powers nevertheless mrs garfield and her son did not fail under it with her own hands the mother split up the young trees into rude triangular rails to make the rough snake fences of the country mere zigzags of wood laid one bit above the other while the lad worked away bravely at sowing fall and spring wheat hoeing indian corn and building a little barn for the harvest before the arrival of the long cold ohio winter to such a family did the future president originally belong and with them he must have shared those strong qualities of perseverance and industry which more than anything else at length secured his ultimate success in life for james garfield's history differs greatly in one point from that of most other famous working men whose stories have been told in this volume there is no reason to believe that he was a man of exceptional or commanding intellect on the contrary his mental powers appear to have been of a very respectable but quite ordinary and commonplace order it was not by brilliant genius that james garfield made his way up in life it was rather by hard work unceasing energy high principle and generous enthusiasm for the cause of others Some of the greatest geniuses among working men, such as Burns, Tannehill, and Chatterton, though they achieved fame, and though they have enriched the world with many touching and beautiful works, must be considered to have missed success in life so far as their own happiness was concerned by their unsteadiness, want of self-control, or lack of fixed principle.

garfield on the other hand was not a genius but by his sterling good qualities he nevertheless achieved what cannot but be regarded as a true success and left an honourable name behind him in the history of his country however poor an american township may be it is seldom too poor to afford its children a moderate and humble education while james garfield was still very young the settlers in the neighbourhood decided to import a schoolmaster whom they boarded about between them after a fashion very common in rural western districts the schoolhouse was only a log hut the master was a lad of twenty and the text-books were of the very meagrest sort but at least james garfield was thus enabled to read and write which after all is the great first step on the road to all possible promotion the raw uncouth yankee lad who taught the ohio boys slept at widow garfield's with thomas and james and the sons of the neighbouring settlers worked on the farm during the summer months but took lessons when the long ice and snow of winter along the lake shore put a stop almost entirely for the time to their usual labours james continued at school till he was twelve years old and then his brother thomas being by that time twenty-one went away by agreement still further west to michigan leaving young jim to take his place upon the little farm the fences were all completed by this time the barn was built the ground was fairly brought under cultivation and it required comparatively little labour to keep the land cropped after the rough fashion which amply satisfies american pioneers with no rent to pay and only their bare living to make out of the soil thomas was going to fell trees in michigan to clear land there for a farmer and he proposed to use his earnings when he got them for the purpose of building a frame house that is to say a house built of planks instead of the existing log hut it must be added in fairness that hard as were the circumstances under which the young garfields lived they were yet lucky in their situation in a new country where wages were high and where the struggle for life is far less severe or competitive than in old settled lands like france and england thomas in fact would get boarded for nothing in michigan and so would be able easily to save almost all his high wages for the purpose of building the frame house so james had to take to the farm in summer while in the winter he began to work as a sort of amateur carpenter in a small way as yet he had lived entirely in the backwoods and had never seen a town or even a village but his education in practical work had begun from his very babyhood and he was handy after the usual fashion of american or colonial boys ready to turn his hand to anything that happened to present itself in new countries where everybody has not got neighbours and workmen within call such rough-and-ready handiness is far more common than in old england the one carpenter of the neighbourhood asked james to help him on the proud day when tom brought back his earnings from michigan and set about the building of the frame house for which he had already collected the unhewn timber from that first beginning by the time he was thirteen james was promoted to assist in building a barn and he might have taken permanently to a carpenter's life had it not been that his boyish passion for reading had inspired him with an equal passion for going to sea he had read marryat's novels and other sailor tales what boy has not and he was fired with the usual childish desire to embark upon that wonderful life of chasing buccaneers fighting pirates capturing prizes or hunting hidden treasure which is a lad's brilliantly coloured fancy picture of an every-day sailor's wet cold cheerless occupation at last when james was about fifteen his longing for the sea grew so strong that his mother by way of a compromise allowed him to go and try his luck with the lake erie captains at cleveland shipping on the great lakes where one can see neither bank from the middle of the wide blue sheet of water and where wrecks are unhappily as painfully frequent as on our own coasts was quite sufficiently like going to sea to suit the adventurous young backwoodsman to the top of his bent but

when he got to cleveland a

fortunate disappointment awaited him the cleveland captains declined his services in such vigorous seafaring language not unmixed with many unnecessary oaths that he was glad enough to give up the idea of sailoring and take a place as a driver of a canal-boat from cleveland to pittsburg in pennsylvania the boat being under the charge of one of his own cousins copper ore was then largely mined on lake superior where it is very abundant carried by ship to cleveland down the chain of lakes and there transferred to canal boats which took it on to pittsburg the centre of the great coal and manufacturing district in pennsylvania to be smelted and employed in various local arts young garfield stuck for a little while to the canal business he plodded along wearily upon the bank driving his still wearier horse before him and carrying ore down to pittsburg with such grace as he best might but it didn't somehow quite come up to his fancy picture of the seaman's life it was dull and monotonous and he didn't care for it much in genuine american language he didn't find it up to sample the sea might be very well in its way but a canal was a very different matter indeed so after a fair trial james finally gave the business up and returned to his mother on the little homestead ill and tired with his long tramping while he was at home the schoolmaster of the place who saw that the lad had abilities was never tired of urging him to go to school and do himself justice by getting himself a first-rate education or at least as good a one as could be obtained in america james was ready enough to take

who meant to make his own way in the world by his own exertions near the end of his third year at chester james met quite accidentally with a young man who had come from a little embryo college of the sort so common in rising american towns at a place called hiram in ohio american schools are almost as remarkable as american towns for the oddity and ugliness of their names and this college was known by the queer and meaningless title of the eclectic institute It was conducted by an obscure sect who dubbed themselves the Disciples' Church, to which young Garfield's father and mother had both belonged.

His casual acquaintance urged upon him strongly the desirability of attending the Institute, and James, who had already begun to learn Latin and wished to learn more, was easily persuaded to try this particular school rather than any other.

in august eighteen fifty one james garfield then aged nearly twenty presented himself at the eclectic institute in the farm labourers clothes which were his only existing raiment he asked to see the president of the school and told him plainly that he wished to come there for education but that he was poor

It's from Fish Mama.

She says, "You should watch Death by Lightning, four episodes on Netflix about President Garfield, and Brandon Williamson, Williamson looked good for the Reds.

I'm already excited about next season." Fish Mama, that's where I would tell you, maybe pump the brakes a little bit.

Look, when next season rolls around, am I gonna be excited too? Yeah, because it's baseball, and when baseball starts, it's fun.

Like Senator Stewart, his fortunes turned within months of the work beginning.

In September 1881, President Garfield was killed by an assassin's bullet.

Blaine, serving as Secretary of State, lasted only three months in the Chester A. Arthur administration.

He lived only two years in the house on Massachusetts Avenue, then rented it out.

Number one, short answer on most underrated president in American history.

James Garfield.

Number two, best political interview you've ever done.

And I recognize best could be – like best could mean you made the most news.