The Unexpected President: The Life and Times of Chester A. Arthur by Scott S. Greenberger

Author:Scott S. Greenberger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 2017-09-11T23:00:00+00:00

In the issue of Harper’s Weekly published the day Arthur and Conkling left Albany, cartoonist Thomas Nast drew the vice president of the United States as a bootblack in an apron, polishing the shoes of New York’s ex-senators. “Out-‘shining’ everybody in humiliation at Albany,” the caption read. Arthur’s employer in the cartoon—a woman symbolizing the American people—says, “I did not engage you, Vice-President Arthur, to do this kind of work.” It was a demeaning image, and it wounded Arthur all the more deeply because he knew it was accurate. Lounging in the saloon of the St. John, listening to his longtime boss plot his next moves, Arthur was ashamed of what his loyalty had cost him.

Looking outside, Arthur saw black-smudged sky ahead—they were close to the northern tip of Manhattan. Within minutes, swirling ferry traffic enveloped the St. John. The shrieking of the gulls mingled with the shouts of stevedores and the slapping of the waves against the hulls of ships in their berths. At about 10:30 a.m., from the Canal Street pier, there was a shout directed at the St. John: President Garfield has been assassinated!

Standing on the St. John, Steward Burdett heard the message, but he could hardly believe it. He rushed into the saloon to tell Arthur and Conkling. “It can’t be true,” Arthur gasped. “This must be some stock speculation.” When he read the telegram confirming the news, he crumpled into his chair, overcome with grief and fear. In the feud between Conkling and Garfield, he had cast his lot with the New York boss. The vice presidency was a higher office than he had ever dreamed of attaining; he could not conceive of being president. Would his countrymen accept him as Garfield’s replacement? Would they blame him for the president’s murder?

The shocking news of Garfield’s shooting momentarily paralyzed Arthur and Conkling, but they soon sprang into action. Ordering their baggage to be sent after them, they flew off the ship and hailed a two-wheeled hansom cab. They clambered in and Conkling opened the trap door in the roof to bark out their destination: the Fifth Avenue Hotel. The driver snapped the reins and headed east on Canal Street. At the corner of Canal and Broadway, he turned uptown, navigating through coupes and cabs, four-wheeled growlers and omnibuses.

At Astor Place, Arthur and Conkling glimpsed the Cooper Union, the Italianate brownstone sanctified by Lincoln’s famous speech two decades before, and the elevated railway rising beyond it. They rode past the great publishing houses and A. T. Stewart’s six-story “Iron Palace,” fronted by long rows of private carriages. Grace Church, with its white marble rectory, was just above Stewart’s. A few blocks farther uptown, the cab passed Tiffany & Company, the country’s largest jewelry store, and Brentano’s News Depot.

By this time, there was scarcely a man, woman, or child in Manhattan who hadn’t heard the horrifying news. The newspapers had received the first dispatch from the capital at around 10 a.m., just when the downtown streets were starting to fill up with merchants and businessmen.

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