Quote:James Garfield's 1880 dark horse nomination after the longest-ever Republican nominating convention, his victory in the closest-ever popular vote for president, his struggle against bitterly feuding factions once elected, and its climax of violence, produced one of the most compelling presidential odysseys of the Gilded Age.

This journey through political backrooms casts familiar Civil War figures like Ulysses S. Grant and Winfield Scott Hancock in unfamiliar roles as politicos alongside feuding machine bosses like Roscoe Conkling, James G. Blaine, and back-room wire-puller Chester Alan Arthur, Garfield 's unlikely vice-presidential running mate.

The era's decency is seen contrasted against sharp partisanship, hauntingly familiar to modern America. But in this case it exploded in the pistol shots of assassin Charles Guiteau, the weak-minded patronage seeker eager to replace the elected Commander-in-Chief with one of his own choosing.