Death by Lightning overdoes the depiction of James Garfield as a sort of Cincinnatus called from the fields to save his country. Perhaps it was to reinforce our sympathy with the slain president, or maybe it’s a product of the show’s sometimes labored parallelism between Garfield and Guiteau — which was also a theme of Candice Millard’s source material — but the series definitely downplays Garfield’s significance before he was nominated president.
James A. Garfield, Republican Candidate for President, and Chester A. Arthur, Republican Candidate for Vice President, in 1880.
Photo: Vic Arnold, A.S. Seer’s Printing Establishment/Glasshouse Vintage/Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
When the series’ Garfield, played by Michael Shannon, leaves his Ohio farm to attend the 1880 Republican National Convention, he comes across as a bucolic figure who was on the margin of politics after obscure but brave service in the Civil War. When Treasury secretary John Sherman asks Garfield to place his name into nomination in Chicago, you wouldn’t know Garfield was a veteran of 17 years in Congress whose reputation as an orator rivaled that of Roscoe Conkling (more on him in a minute). You also wouldn’t know that Garfield, despite his humble upbringing, had been a college president and an ordained minister before rising to the rank of major general in the war. In fact, he was the only president ever to have served as clergy.
Garfield was a pretty big deal in Republican politics in 1880, even if no one thought of him as a presidential contender. According to Kenneth Ackerman’s book, the future president Benjamin Harrison had tracked down Garfield in Chicago to ask if he’d be willing to accept the nomination if a deadlock between Ulysses Grant and James Blaine developed, which is exactly what happened. It wasn’t as wild an idea as the miniseries suggests, though Shannon as Garfield convincingly conveys a humility that makes his elevation seem semi-miraculous.
