"When he woke up a few hours later and was told in no uncertain terms that he had won the election and was to be the twentieth president of the United States, he was, one reporter noted with astonishment, the 'coolest man in the room.' Later that day, Garfield gave his election to the presidency little more mention in his diary than he had the progress of his oat crop a few weeks earlier. 'The news of 3 a.m.,' he wrote, 'is fully justified by the morning papers.' In the days that followed, surrounded by celebrations and frantic plans for his administration, Garfield could not shake the feeling that the presidency would bring him only loneliness and sorrow. As he watched everything he treasured—his time with his children, his books, and his farm—abruptly disappear, he understood that the life he had known was gone. The presidency seemed to him not a great accomplishment but a 'bleak mountain' that he was obliged to ascend. Sitting down at his desk in a rare moment to himself, he tried to explain in a letter to a friend the strange sense of loss he had felt since the election. 'There is a tone of sadness running through this triumph,' he wrote, 'which I can hardly explain.'"
I'm rereading "Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President" (commission earned) to go along with the Netflix series — "Death by Lightning" — that's based on the book.
Why change the title to something factually inaccurate? Garfield once said "Assassination can no more be guarded against than death by lightning; it is best not to worry about either."
The series is very visual, conveying information only impressionistically. Great sets, costumes, actorly finesse in the delivery of short emotional lines, but there is so much more going on in the book. That's just a typical book-is-better-than-the-film observation, not a rejection of the adaptation, which is excellent.I'm interested in the Presidents who have not wanted to be President, who have felt bad about winning. I asked Grok to list them in the order of how much they did not want to have to do it and got this:
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What a great part of American history to retell. The post-Civil War years deserve more attention, and may even offer us some hope for the present. They were extremely difficult and violent years, not only from a mad man assassin, but through cruel racial retribution as attempt to overthrow the outcome of the war were widespread.
Make sure to give attention to the PBS documentary about the American Revolution.
Spending a bit of time with America’s difficult history should give us some hope for the present.
Yes, things are much better than the Revolution and post-CW periods. Women can vote, there's nor slavery nor Jim Crow, and we're not overrun with immigrants who riot and reject our cultur....oh well, still not perfect....CC, JSM
Garfield, as a brigadier general was Rosecrans chief of staff at Chickamauga. Reportedly he did a good job and performed better on the field than Rosecrans did.
There's a old saying that ambition to be President should be a disqualification for the job.
I just watched the show. Nick Offerman and Betty Gilpin alone are worth it. Lucretia Garfield, played by Gilpin, was an interesting, if forgotten person. It's rare that the northern bloc of Tammany Hall officials are the subject of a post-Civil War story. It's a weird sartorial time in America, as men's hair and clothes are extreme and women more restrained. I've never seen such a long list of clothes and hair stylists. Of course there are other reasons to watch it.
"There's a old saying that ambition to be President should be a disqualification for the job."
The ambition to be a political leader and the ambition to accomplish laudable and historic goals through political leadership are not the same.
Garfield went to bed at 3am, and dreamed of Lasagna
Any list of people who didn't want to become president and doesn't include Donald Trump is missing the most obvious and well-documented case, probably intentionally. DJT was interviewed thousands of times in his very public life before 2015 and asked hundreds of times if he would run for president and he always declined and stated his reasons very clearly. I do believe that Althouse has posted at least one of those interviews from a talk show in which Trump explains why he had no interest or desire to become president of the USA. He only chose to sacrifice his enviable Billionaire lifestyle because he saw how much danger our nation was in after 8 years of Purple Lips and his shitbag wife destroying everything America was founded on.
"Garfield, as a brigadier general was Rosecrans chief of staff at Chickamauga. Reportedly he did a good job and performed better on the field than Rosecrans did."
The guy he replaced, Julius Garesche, lost his head in his first combat experience at Stones River.
An excellent biography by Millard, one of my favorite biographers. I'm not sure about watching the show. I'll probably skip it.
I watched. Meh. Played up the woke…
…just started season 2 of Palm Royale. Carol Burnett, Kristen Wiig, Allison Janney. Delicious! A cameo by Mar-A-Lago…
Where is George Washington on this list?
I don’t consider Truman to be in the same grouping as the others on the list since he was not actually seeking the Presidency, like the others were, when he made that statement.
Garfield was a very interesting man. And so was Coolidge who would've won in a landslide it ran again in 1928. Probably another reluctant POTUS was Taft. He really wanted to be Chief Justice not POTUS, but his wife wanted him to take the R nomination which was served up by TR on a silver platter in 1908.
Moderately annoyed at the mythologizing, I tried to draft a comment about Jocasta having Oedipus's greatness thrust upon her (bonus points for working in an allusion to Malvolio) but that was a fail, my reach very much exceeding my grasp (no chance of a nod to Robert Browning, here, genuine buffoon that I am).
So another tack. I googled: "What did the explorers of the new world call the condemned prisoner who was forced to make first contact with the native population?" Wow! Talk about a guy not wanting to assume an awesomely important responsibility!!!
So, . . . what did I get? Zip. Absolute zip. And now we are all the poorer for the experience.
Garfield, as a brigadier general was Rosecrans chief of staff at Chickamauga. Reportedly he did a good job and performed better on the field than Rosecrans did.
That may be damming with faint praise. A lot of generals at Chickamauga and later at Chattanooga performed much better than Rosecrans. Rosecrans had a good campaign against Bragg to get to Chattanooga but most of his victories seem to be defense battles where some Confederate general assaulted strong positions.
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