20.B) Death by Lightning, an interview on the assassination of James Garfield with Candice Millard

Historian Candice Millard, author of Destiny of the Republic, discusses what it's like to have your book turned into a major Netflix Miniseries, Death by Lightning, and what first attracted her to the story of President James Garfield and the assassin Charles Guiteau. 

Transcript

0:04
Welcome to the abridged Presidential Histories with Kenny Ryan Austin Episode 20 B an interview on the assassination of James Garfield and what it's like to have your history novel turned into a Netflix miniseries with author Candice Millard.
I'm excited to welcome Candice Millard to the show today.
0:22
Candice is the author of numerous compelling history novels, The River of Doubt about Teddy Roosevelt and the Amazon, Hero of the Emperor about Winston Churchill and the Boer War, River of the Gods about the search for the source of the Nile, and Destiny of the Republic about the assassination of President James Garfield by Charles Gateau.
0:41
The last of those, Destiny of the Republic, was just turned into a Netflix miniseries released this month titled Death by Lightning.
My wife and I are loving, we're three episodes and we're loving it so far.
So we're going to talk about James Garfield, the assassination, and what it's like as an author to have one of your books turn into a hit TV miniseries.
1:01
Candace, thank you for joining me.
Hi, thanks for having me.
Very welcome.
So what has this moment felt like for you to see one of your books turned into a major Netflix miniseries?
Every time I TuneIn it's like one or two on Netflix right now.
I know, I mean, it's definitely surreal, but it's been a lot of fun.
1:20
You know, I, I, this is the first time I've done this, so I don't know, but I, I hear that it can go terribly wrong and you can possibly hate it and you just have to tell yourself, oh, well, that's, you know, my, that my book is a different thing from the adaptation.
1:37
But in my case, it's just been the best experience.
You know, I, Mike Makowski, the creator and screenwriter, reached out to me six years ago.
And, and you know, for obvious reasons, it's taken that long for someone to green light a Netflix series based on James Garfield, any period piece, but especially based on James Garfield.
2:02
And, you know, I, it's one of those things he, he's, he's very young and he was obviously even younger then, but had already done some really impressive things.
And he's just, he's really smart.
He's really passionate about the story.
2:18
He took it very seriously.
He cared about it as much as I did, which is really saying something.
And so just over the years, you know, he would reach out to me, give me updates.
You know, sometimes there'll be progress.
A lot of times like, oh, well, that didn't work out.
2:36
And I just kind of went about my life.
You know, I live in Kansas City, I'm raising 3 kids, working on, you know, different books along the way.
And so just was kind of fun getting these updates.
And then, you know, when it was greenlit was really like, wow, I guess they're really doing this.
2:53
And then I would get updates about the cast, which is just insane.
It's just the most insane cast, you know.
And I was like, my God, this is incredible.
And obviously, you know, Benioff and Weiss, the creators of Game of Thrones are behind it.
3:09
And Netflix really just, you know what all in with this.
And I, I think in my opinion at least, it really shows, you know, it's beautifully produced.
The cast is incredible, but it all revolves around Mike's script, which he is very closely to the actual story, which I really appreciate.
3:33
That's hard to do, especially in just 4 episodes, but it has a very modern feel to it, which I think is fun and and really necessary to, you know, bring viewers to this story, especially young ones.
3:48
So anyway, overall, just a great experience.
It's been really fun.
That's awesome to hear.
And I'm curious, how involved did you get to be in production?
You know, was this kind of like the kids off to college?
I really hope everything turns out all right.
Or, Or are you more involved?
Yeah.
No, no, that's definitely, that's a, that's a great analogy.
4:05
I wish them well.
And I, I mean, I, I know enough about myself to know that I don't know anything about that world.
I don't know anything about screen writing.
I kind of stick to my own lane very happily.
And so I, I would just, if, if any, if I, if I had any effect on it, it would be a -1.
4:26
So they knew I was there if they needed anything.
And again, he would give me updates.
And, you know, obviously I saw the script, I loved the script.
And I told Mike at the very beginning, I was like, look, you know, a couple things that I really care about.
4:43
And then the main 1 was just Garfield's character.
Because when I was writing the book, you know, when I started writing the book, I didn't know anything about Garfield.
And we can get into this later, but I, I didn't start with Garfield.
It just kind of ended up being about Garfield.
5:00
So I and I, I like any writer of history, I try to, or journalist, I try to come at it with complete objectivity to see what I find.
But what I found is a really extraordinary human being who was completely forgotten.
5:17
And, you know, being a human being, I formed an opinion and that one was of someone who really admired Garfield.
I really admired him.
I, I come, came to care about him.
And so I really, I, I, I felt like, you know, this is, this was really a decent human being, a great leader.
5:39
And I wanted that to be clear in the series and it and it absolutely is.
So that was reassuring.
And so, yeah, I just, I've been on the sidelines and since it's come out, they've been so great about including me.
You know, he puts, you know, up front and center that it's based on my book and he talks about that.
5:57
And they invited me to the premiere and we did a showing in Ohio.
And he's really included me along the way, which I I really appreciate.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
In in the first episode, I, I read the book and my wife asked me is Garfield a good guy?
And I said yes.
And he'll be almost the only good guy in the story.
6:14
That's.
Right.
So just be prepared, yeah?
What has been your favorite part through the whole experience?
You know what, like, was there a moment from development or a favorite scene that you're moved by the sea in production or like a casting that you're like, I can't believe we got that person to play that person.
6:30
Anything like that?
Well, again, all of the cast, I just think Betty Gilson is just really, really good.
She just brings so much power to Lucretia, which I really love because, you know, I was very limited in what I had to work with.
6:47
Often happens when you're trying to write about a woman in history.
You know, you don't just don't.
They didn't have the opportunities to have these positions of power where everybody was paying attention to what they did and writing about them.
So I had, you know what, she wrote her letters with Garfield and other people's impressions, but not as much as I would want.
7:07
And he really brought her out the series.
And Betty Gilpin really makes her a very strong character that I think is very true to who she was.
And obviously Matthew Mcfadian is just an unbelievably good as Charles Guto.
7:24
He's just an incredible actor and and what I love about his performance, many things, but I've always felt that Guto was he's obviously he did this horrible, horrible thing.
He was also, and I I get into it somewhat in the book, but he was he had a wife briefly and he treated her horribly, just, you know, terribly.
7:49
He was unbelievably cruel to her.
He was arrogant and he was selfish, but he was ill.
He was mentally ill and he he also would had been, you know, abused by his father.
He had a horrible father.
8:05
He had a very traumatic childhood.
And you can't help but pity him.
And you, you, you can't help but I don't know if you, you don't like him, but you feel for him, you know, and, and you get all those nuances and it's, and he, his life is darkly funny as well.
8:27
I mean, it's very, it's bizarre.
And he says these very strange things and he is in these strange situations like the free love commune.
And all of that is absolutely true.
And you see all of that in Matthew Mcfadian's performance, I feel.
8:43
And so that was incredible.
And I'll tell you one experience that I had with Michael Shannon as Garfield, because as I said, you know, I, I had just studied him for many years and I felt like I kind of knew Garfield in a way.
8:59
And I went to Budapest where they were filming.
I just went to set for a couple of days.
And when I got there, the I was fresh off the my flight, you know, from Kansas City to Budapest, checked into my hotel, brushed my teeth, and they took me right to the set.
9:16
And I walked in and Matthew or Michael Shannon was dressed like Garfield.
They were filming the convention scene, right?
Which is so great.
It's so well done.
And I saw he was standing on stage in this incredible set, just like the convention in Chicago.
9:38
And honestly, it took my breath away.
It was like seeing this man I had come to admire and I had studied for so long.
It was like seeing him come to life.
And I honestly, I wanted to like shout at him, you know, watch out, you know, don't take it, don't do it.
9:57
You know it's not going to end well.
You know, you want to you.
And that's the kind of the sense I tried to get into the book as I wrote it, like since, you know, switching between Guiteau and Garfield, Guiteau and you, here's Garfield, you know, living his life, all these things are happening totally unaware that there's this tragedy coming towards him.
10:18
And I want the I wanted the reader to feel that.
And, and I felt, I felt that when I was there, when they were filming, it was really a strange but very powerful experience for me.
That that is awesome to share.
10:34
Thank you for sharing that.
And let's start diving into the story that is at the heart of this.
I mentioned I love your book Destiny of the Republic.
Highly recommend it to listeners.
What first attracted you to the story of President James Garfield?
You just mentioned you know almost nothing about, you know, the assassin Charles Guateau, the guy who kind of actually did kill Garfield, Doctor Bliss, You know, how did he find out about all this?
10:55
Well, so, you know, my, my first book was about Theodore Roosevelt.
And but it wasn't like I was looking.
People always assumed, oh, you wanted to write another book about another president.
And that wasn't the case at all.
You know, I had worked at National Geographic for six years and I was steeped in stories about science.
11:15
And I really loved that my first book had a lot.
It was set in the Amazon, had a lot of Natural History in it.
And I wanted another book with a lot of science.
So I was just doing random research and I was researching Alexander Graham Bell, just like, oh, I wonder if you know anything in his life.
11:31
And I stumbled upon the story of him trying to find the bullet and Garfield, after Garfield was shot, you know, he invented this induction ballots, the first metal detector.
There was no medical X-ray at that time.
And I was like, why don't I know this?
11:47
You know, it was like Alexander Graham Bell.
Everybody knows Alexander Graham Bell and a president of the United States, one of only four who have been assassinated.
And I don't, I don't, I've never heard that story.
And so I just started, I thought, I wonder what Garfield was like.
12:02
Honestly, it was just that like, I wonder what Garfield was like.
And because like most Americans, unfortunately, we only know that he's been assassinated.
And so I started researching him.
And I always say my, my husband's always my victim here because when I start with a new idea, I'm constantly calling him and interrupting his work, saying guess what?
12:24
Guess what?
And so I was like, Oh my gosh, Mark, you know, this Garfield was brilliant.
You know, he, he wrote original proof of the Pythagorean theorem.
He was incredible classicist.
He knew Latin and Greek.
He, you know, he and he, and he had a, a heart to match his mind.
12:41
You know, he, he hit a runaway slave.
He was instrumental in black suffrage.
You know, he, he, he helped to, to found the Department of Education.
You know, he was it was just like, Oh, my gosh, this guy was extraordinary.
And he was modest and he was brave and he didn't want to be president.
13:01
And he he, you know, he was thrust into this role in this crazy situation.
And.
And then, yeah, as you say, then I start.
I was like, wow, I wonder, you know, who shot him?
Oh, my gosh.
You know.
And so it was funny because Mike, again, the creator of the series, and I always laugh because he's like, it's almost too much.
13:22
But the strange, like the coincidences and the, you know, the absurd story, that's all absolutely true.
In fact, you know, you you mentioned the doctor, this Doctor Who really killed Garfield by inserting his fingers and instruments unsterilized again and again when he should have known better.
13:41
And you know, as you know his name, his first name was Doctor, which is amazing Doctor, Doctor Willard Bliss.
And they didn't put that in the series because, well, for two reasons. 1M was like, it's just too strange People like that's so stupid.
For sure.
That's not true.
13:57
And then also, you know, you don't you don't meet him until the final episode, which is obviously an episode where Garfield is shot and is dying.
And so there's no point.
It just becomes, you know, a lot of the series as you know, if you've just watched this for so it's funny.
14:16
There's a funny situation.
I mean, it's it's it's you know, it's it's weighty and it's tragic and it's, you know, very fascinating.
But there's really some funny, you know, Chester Arthur's character, everything.
But by the time you get to this final episode, there's no place for humor.
14:36
They're just.
And, you know, he said that he had thought about having Lucretia say something like his first name is Doctor.
But she's like, when am I going to be putting this silly thing in?
You know, they're just.
Yeah, it's a good.
Point.
It's a good point.
Yeah, for sure.
14:53
And so you mentioned like there are just so many memorable characters in the story and as you read it and or watch the show, you just keeping like these people are all just so much larger in life.
So I'm curious, when you were doing your research, who is your favorite to learn about and why?
Well, it had to be Garfield again, because I came at it not knowing very much and just learning more and more about him.
15:16
You know, just for your, for your listeners who don't know anything.
I mean, he was our last president, born in a log cabin and born into extreme poverty.
His father died before he was two.
He didn't have shoes well into his own childhood in Ohio.
15:35
So his his mother and his older brother scrimped and saved to save a little bit of money to save send him to college because he was clearly so intelligent.
But still, he had to pay to pay his way through school.
His freshman year he was a Carpenter and a janitor.
15:54
But he was so smart that by his sophomore year, when he's still just a student himself, they made him a professor of literature, mathematics and ancient languages, You know, and, and as I said then, you know, he was this incredible classicist, wrote original proofs of Pythagorean theorem while he was in Congress.
16:11
I mean, I'm sorry, name me a member of Congress who can do something like that today.
They just don't exist.
I'm we have some very smart people, I'm sure, but not to that level.
I mean, he just was just incredibly brilliant and and did some really, really good things while he was in Congress.
16:30
He and he was a hero and the and the Union Army for during the Civil War.
And so just, you know, the kind of person you just wish we could have and any kind of leader, certainly, you know, as president of the United States and that the fact that we had him for such a short time.
16:50
And I do believe, I will say I, I honestly believe and, and Mike agrees with me that he would have been one of our great presidents for all those reasons I've just said, but also because he didn't have what he referred to as presidential fever.
17:07
And he said that he had watched so many of his friends, good men, you know, succumb to this presidential fever.
And what it meant is that they were kind of willing to do pretty much anything to get to the highest position in the land.
17:23
And so they kind of sold their souls along the way.
And Elise made compromises that he was just not willing to make.
And it's not that he never thought about becoming president.
Obviously he, he was, he was in politics.
He was an incredibly powerful speaker.
17:39
He had gotten a lot of attention.
A lot of people had been like, oh, hey, you know, what do you think about it?
And it's not that he wouldn't want it, but he wasn't willing to make those sacrifices, the sacrifices of his own principles and ideals and, and what made him an interesting and I think again, decent human being, he wasn't willing to sacrifice those.
18:00
And then when he become, he's not a candidate, he's kind of thrust into this role.
He becomes suddenly president of the United States.
How does that never happens?
So he was in a uniquely powerful position, right?
Because he he went into this office not owing anyone anything, which is extremely rare and very powerful.
18:22
And I think you could have, anyone could do some real good with that if they wanted to.
And he wanted to, but he was denied that opportunity by Guto and by his doctor.
So I want to probe more into this kind of accidental president thing, you know, because to hear James Garfield tell it, he wasn't trying to become president in 1880.
18:42
He was just trying to give a speech nominating some other guy at the Republican National Convention.
And he accidentally gave such a good speech that he was nominated instead.
Do do you you honestly take Garfield for his word here?
Or do you think he was trying to become president, maybe trying to become president in a way that didn't require all the sacrifices, like you said, You know, did he think that this speech was going to lead to a nomination?
19:05
I mean, I do believe him.
Like I said, I I don't believe and I don't think he would have said, oh, I've never considered it right.
Oh, I no, and I definitely would never want to be president.
Although when he gets into office and, you know, it's the height of the spoil system and he's forced to meet with office seekers every single day.
19:27
You know, any average person who wants a job at the post office gets to meet with the president personally, you know, and it was taking all of his time and he didn't have time to read and think and work.
And he was very frustrated.
And he said, I don't know why anyone would ever want this job.
19:43
But but you know, again, so, so he was always an incredibly powerful speaker.
That's one of the things he was known for.
And he used to joke that he had a fatal facility with words.
So get him started and off he would go, right.
20:00
And he had he cared very much about things.
He was extremely knowledgeable about a lot of things.
So you ask him to speak.
He's going to speak and he's not going to pull his punches, right?
And so John Sherman, who was William to come to Shermans younger brother, secretary of the Treasury, also from Ohio, like Garfield, he wants to run for president and he hears rumblings of people saying, you know, wow, Garfield would make a great candidate.
20:26
So he, you know, intelligently.
I mean, it wasn't a bad bet, although it didn't turn out well for him.
He thought, well, kind of to to stop the those people who want Garfield to run.
I will ask him to give my nominating address.
20:43
And by the way, I know he's an incredibly gifted speaker.
So he's going to give a really good one in Garfield.
You know, he went to Chicago without a speech.
And so he's trying to come up with a speech.
The night before this, the convention, he has to share his small bed with another man, a stranger.
21:08
One of the other people at the convention knocks on his door and is like, hey, you know, my brother's here.
He doesn't have anywhere to stay.
Can he stay with you?
So he had to sleep in his bed with the other man.
I mean, again, these crazy things.
So he got no sleep.
And he goes there with an idea of what he's going to say.
21:26
And he really changes.
Listening to Roscoe Conkling's nominating address for for for Grant, he, which is really tempestuous, right?
And everybody's worked up and they're chanting Grant, grant, Grant.
21:42
And Garfield is a completely different personality, totally opposite end of the spectrum from Roscoe Conkling and gives gets up and gives a very, very different kind of speech.
So you go from people, you know, just kind of a wild frenzy to just silence.
22:03
And they're listening to him speak.
And it's so powerful and beautiful and inspiring that they all just kind of quiet and they're they're kind of spellbound and they do such a good job.
Michael Shannon, just an excellent job of giving that speech.
22:21
And it's absolutely what happened, you know.
And as he's giving it someone, he says, my friends, I ask you, what do we want?
And someone shouts, we want Garfield.
That did happen.
And again, he's not a candidate and the votes are coming.
So, you know, you could sure, you could say, oh, he really wanted it.
22:40
I don't believe that.
I mean, I again, he he was, he was not very old.
He was just in his 40s, late 40s.
Had you thought of it?
Sure.
Of course.
I'm not saying he never ever.
But did he go there hoping that this would happen?
Of course not.
22:55
There's no way.
I mean, you know, the chances.
I, I don't think that ever occurred to him.
I think he thought, I'm going to go there to give a nominating address for John Sherman.
And as he always did, I'm going to give the best speech I can because this matters and I have a platform and these are things that I care about, so I'm going to say them.
23:14
And he did.
And then it this happened.
And then he's nominated, he wins the election, he becomes president, and and then he's president.
And he finds there are some very powerful people standing in his way, including his vice president, who cannot be trusted, right.
23:31
How did Garfield try to navigate that opposition?
And, and I'm curious to like, what lessons could politicians today learn from Garfield and how he tried to navigate when you have powerful interest groups lined up against you?
Well, as you say, you know, he had sort of definitely enemies within, which I think does happen all the time, certainly happens today.
23:52
So at that time there was a big rift in the Republican Party.
There were the stalwarts who who protected, wanted to protect the spoil system.
And then they're what they called the half breeds.
They're like, you're not really Republicans because they wanted reform.
24:08
And Garfield was 1/2 breed and and his vice president, Chester Arthur was a stalwart.
So stalwart.
So yeah, Chester Arthur was wholly the product of the spoil system.
So this man, Roscoe Conkling, who'd been a senior senator from New York and he controlled the New York Customs House, which was which took in 75% of the entire country's customs revenue.
24:34
So very, very powerful position.
And he wielded it right.
And, and he had been the man behind Grant and he was wanting Grant to have a third term so he could kind of run things from from behind.
And he was furious when Grant didn't get the nomination and he decided that he would make himself Garfield's enemy.
24:56
What happened is that the the party knew that they couldn't win without New York.
They needed New York's help.
They needed New York's votes.
So they needed Roscoe Conkling.
And So what they did is they said, OK, Chester Arthur, who is your man?
Conkling had made Arthur the controller of the New York Customs House.
25:15
We'll make him Garfield's running mate.
Garfield didn't have any choice in the matter.
He was just thrust.
And then when they won and Arthur is his vice president, you'd think, oh, maybe Arthur would come around.
No, he's still completely Roscoe Conkling's man.
25:30
He often lived with him when they were in New York.
He went on vacations with him.
He and he spoke openly about Garfield criticizing Garfield, openly so.
And then as soon as Garfield starts, he's trying to put together his administration, Roscoe Conkling starts pulling.
25:48
So he any person that Garfield would name to position in his administration, and you see it in the series, it's absolutely true.
Roscoe Conkling would have them literally drag from their bed in the middle of the night, brought to his apartment actually, which he people called the morgue and threatened him.
26:06
And the person would drop out like, oh, sorry, Garfield, I actually can't take that position after all.
And so there was this real clash and Garfield ended up winning that.
And I won't get into all of that, but but he did win.
And it was a, it was a, it was, it strengthened the, the American presidency, the position of the American presidency.
26:28
But, but I think I don't know.
I mean, I'm not a politician.
So I guess politicians would take what they want from that story.
But in general, I think, you know, the, the moral is if you believe in something, stick to it.
Stick to your guns, you know, and don't give in.
26:45
And the, the interesting thing to me, the most interesting thing about this story is this particular story within the story is Chester Arthur's transformation and how much he changed after Garfield was shot and he cut off Roscoe Conkling.
27:01
And he so, and it's a really very, very interesting and absolutely, again, absolutely true transformation that no one saw coming.
And, and so it's kind of inspirational.
And so you think, you see, you know, sometimes very corrupt politicians and you think there's no way they could ever change.
27:21
There is a way.
They just have to want to.
Yeah, so Garfield, he ends up getting four months to try to make a difference in the White House before Charles Gutteau, A disillusioned and is it safe to say crazy supporter and patronage seeker, shot Garfield in the back at a train station.
27:39
And then it took two months, more than two months for Garfield to slowly die.
What impact did Garfield's death have on American politics in the 1880s?
You know, like, was there a soul searching, A reckoning?
What future do you think was lost?
Well, I think, yeah, again, I think we lost potentially one of our great presidents.
28:01
I think he would have made a lot of progress about in the areas that especially that he cared about, which was rights for Friedman, which was education, which had been his own salvation.
He also, you know, he in smaller ways, he was a a strong advocate for hard money.
28:19
So gold backing the dollar.
He, you know, that was sort of thought globally was already reaching out to like, you know, Latin America and things like that.
So we lost a lot, but I but I, you know, as sometimes happens and you know, we're, we're lucky in this way.
28:35
There are Silver Linings.
I mean, for one, Garfield died not from the bullet.
The bullet didn't hit any vital organs, didn't hit his spinal cord.
He almost certainly would have been absolutely fine if they'd left him alone.
He was killed by his his doctors and he died from a just horrific septicemia.
28:56
So he just riddled with infection by the time he he really, really suffered before his death.
And people realized that.
And when the autopsy results came out, his doctor was, you know, it's sort of publicly humiliated and after sepsis was accepted and, and went on to save just countless lives.
29:20
So that was a huge difference.
And he also, his death brought the country together in a way that it hadn't been since, since the, since the Civil War, you know, with Lincolns assassination, there were a lot of recriminations and, you know, the, the North felt the South had killed their president, you know, but, but Garfield was really one of the first president since the Civil War where all of America felt like this is our president.
29:51
He, he was seen as the president of both the North and the South.
And, and there's sort of their shared grief brought them together in a way that was extremely healing and that the country really needed after this horrible war and this deep, deep divide.
30:10
And, and so, you know, that absolutely changed the the course of the country.
Speaking of countries changing, you know, Destiny of the Republic was published in 2011, and I feel like we're always looking at history through the lens of the current moment to try to help us make sense of now.
30:29
And now is very different than 2011.
So is there anything from the story that your perspective has changed on or that you think is more resonant today?
Well, to me, you know, one of the things that Garfield said that's always stayed with me and that I think that we could all use today is he used to describe himself as a poor hater.
30:51
You know, people used to say, wow, you know, that that journalist really attacked you.
And yet when you saw him on the street, you would say, hey, how you doing?
The old so and so you know, or, or that that other politician, you know, cheated you or tricked you or you know, was against your bill.
31:09
And and he would always forgive and he would find ways to connect and work together still.
And he would just shrug and he would say I'm a poor hater.
And I think that if we could have.
More people who are.
Poor haters, just think of the difference that would make if we could sit down and listen to each other with genuine respect and with genuine humility.
31:36
And, you know, I, I really think that I mean, any, anytime, any place in history, anywhere in the world that would make a significant difference.
And we see so much animosity and so much tension today.
31:53
And if we could all be, you know, poor haters like James Garfield, I think we'd be so much better off.
I really like that answer.
The last question I have for you.
I asked this of everybody, what lessons in leadership can we learn from James Garfield?
32:11
Again, I think you have to stay true to yourself.
And I think that happens fairly rarely in politics because I think by the time you get to any position of real power and real prominence, you have had to make compromises along the way that you didn't expect to make.
32:32
And it I, I don't, again, I don't know much about politics.
I think to some degree that, you know, if you want to and they, they kind of address it a little bit in the series.
You know, even Garfield was in some positions where you like, OK, if you want to get elected and be in a position where you can make a difference, sometimes you have to, again, make compromises that Garfield to a large degree did not make.
33:01
And so I don't know, you know, is it possible?
I don't know.
I'd like to believe that that it is.
So anyway, that's what I would.
To me, that's what is one of the things that's so admirable about him is he didn't compromise his principles along the way.
33:17
And I would personally love to vote for someone like that.
Amen.
If you've enjoyed this interview with Candace and want to learn more about James Garfield, pick up Destiny of the Republic from your favorite local bookstore and grab a seat on your couch to watch Death by Lightning, which just dropped on Netflix this month.
33:35
You can also learn more about Candace and her books at candacemillard.com.
Thank you for your time, Candace.
Thank you so much, I really enjoyed the conversation.
Thank you for listening to today's episode of Abridged Presidential Histories.
33:51
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34:07
And thank you so much to everyone who's contributed so far The music.
Today's podcast was a public domain recording of the United States Army, Old Guard, faith and drum corps.
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