A shot fired in the lobby of a Washington, D.C. , train station in 1881 would eventually claim the life of the United States’ 20th president — James A. Garfield. According to author Candice Millard, the assassination also shook the very core of the nation.
In her book, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, Ms. Millard interweaves the story of a little-known president with that of his delusional assassin to paint a clear picture of an America fractured by civil war and weakened by political corruption in the form of a spoils system run amok.
Destiny of the Republic , now out in paperback, won the Edgar Award, the PEN Center USA award, and was named a best book of the year by The New York Times, the Washington Post, Amazon, and several others.