Dark horse : the surprise election and political murder of President James A. Garfield / Kenneth D. Ackerman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ackerman, Kenneth D.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Garfield, James A. (James Abram), 1831-1881.

Garfield, James A.

Garfield, James A. (James Abram), 1831-1881--Assassination.

Guiteau, Charles J. (Charles Julius), 1841-1882.

Guiteau, Charles J.

Assassination.

United States--Politics and government--1881-1885.

United States.

Politics and government.

Presidents--United States.

Presidents.

Assassins.

Physical Description:

551 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm

Edition:

First Carroll and Graf edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Carroll & Graf Publishers, [2003]

Summary:

In post-Civil War America, politics was a brutal sport played with blunt rules. Yet James Garfield's 1881 "dark horse" campaign after the longest-ever Republican nominating process (36 convention ballots), his victory in the closest-ever popular vote for president (by only 7,018 votes out of over 9 million cast), his struggle against feuding factions once elected, and the public's response to its culmination in violence, sets a revealing comparison with America approaching a new campaign year in 2004.

Author and Capitol Hill veteran Kenneth D. Ackerman re-creates an American political landscape where fierce battles for power unfolded against a chivalrous code of honor in a nation struggling under the shadow of a recent war to confront its modernity. Familiar Civil War figures like Ulysses Grant and Winfield Scott Hancock are cast in unfamiliar roles as politicos alongside machine bosses like the egotistical Senator Roscoe Conkling, the manipulative James G. Blaine, and backroom wire-puller Chester A. Arthur. The journey through political back rooms, dazzling convention floors, and intrigue-filled Congressional and White House chambers, reveals the era's decency and humanity as well as the sharp partisanship that exploded in the pistol shots of assassin Charles Guiteau, the weak-minded political camp-follower and patronage seeker trying to replace one Commander-in-Chief with another.

The murder prompted leaders to recoil at their own excesses and changed the tone of politics for generations to come. Garfield's own struggle against powerful forces is a compelling human drama; the portrait of Americans coming together after his assassination exemplifies the dignity and grace that havelong held the nation together in crisis.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0786711515

OCLC:

52382150