The Life and Public Services of James A. Garfield

"The great heart of the people will not let the old soldier die!" 

So murmured the brave, patient sufferer in his sleep that terrible July night, when the whole nation, stricken down with grief and consternation at the assassin's deed, watched, waited, prayed—as one man—for the life of their beloved President. 

And all through those weary eighty days that followed, of alternate hope and fear, how truly the great, loving, sympathetic heart of the people did battle, with millions of unseen weapons, for the strong, heroic spirit that never faltered, never gave up "the one chance," even while he whispered: "God's will be done; I am ready to go if my time has come." 

Party differences were all forgotten; there was no longer any North or South—only one common brotherhood, one great, sorrowing household watching with tender solicitude beside the death-bed of their loved one. 

How anxiously the varying bulletins were studied! How eagerly the faintest glimmer of hope was seized! And when, on that never-to-be-forgotten anniversary of Chickamauga's battle, the midnight bells tolled out their solemn requiem, 

"The nation sent 

Like Egypt, in her tenth and final blow. 

Through all the land a loud and bitter cry; 

And felt, like her, as o'er her dead she bent, 

There is in every home a present woe!" 

And yet, with renewed fervor, we repeat those pathetic words: 

"The great heart of the people will not let the old soldier die!" 

While bowing reverently, submissively to the decree of the Almighty Disposer of human affairs, the nation feels that "no canon of earth or Heaven can forbid the enshrining of his manly virtues and grand character, so that after-generations may profit by the contemplation of them." 

A halo of immortal glory already gathers around the name of James A. Garfield...