Explore the real-world places that appear in Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard. Each location on the map shows what happens there in the novel, the real history of the place, and what's there today. Featured locations include Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station, The White House, Riggs House Hotel, Armory Square Hospital / Smithsonian Institution Building, Elberon, New Jersey — Francklyn Cottage and 8 more.
6th Street & B Street NW (now the National Gallery of Art site) — Site of the shooting
On July 2, 1881, Charles Guiteau shot President James A. Garfield here as he walked through the ladies' waiting room to board a train to New Jersey. Guiteau fired two shots — one grazed Garfield's arm, the other lodged near his spine. Garfield collapsed, and Guiteau was immediately seized. Millard describes the scene in vivid detail: the summer heat, the chaos among bystanders, Guiteau's eerie calm as he surrendered, saying he expected Arthur would be president and the Stalwarts would be in charge.
The Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station was a grand Second Empire-style terminal that opened in 1873 at 6th Street and B Street NW on the National Mall. It was widely criticized for its location on the Mall and was demolished in 1908 after Union Station opened.
The site is now occupied by the West Building of the National Gallery of Art. A small plaque near the museum acknowledges that the shooting of President Garfield occurred on this ground. The National Gallery is fully open to the public.
Visit: National Gallery of Art (West Building) (museum)
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW — Garfield's presidency and Guiteau's obsession
Guiteau became obsessed with obtaining the consulship to Paris and repeatedly visited the White House to press his case, believing he had helped elect Garfield with a speech almost no one heard. Secretary of State James Blaine eventually barred him from the premises, telling him never to return. Garfield himself worked from the White House in the months before the shooting, wrestling with the brutal Stalwart-Half-Breed factional war within the Republican Party, particularly his standoff with Senator Roscoe Conkling over patronage appointments.
The White House has served as the official residence and workplace of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. During Garfield's brief presidency in 1881, the building was a crowded, accessible place — office-seekers could walk in off the street and petition the president directly.
The White House remains the official residence of the U.S. president. Public tours are available through congressional offices, and the White House Visitor Center on E Street NW is open to the public.
Visit: White House Visitor Center (museum)
15th Street & G Street NW — Guiteau's base in Washington
Guiteau stayed at various cheap boarding houses and hotels around Washington while scheming for his consulship, including time near the Riggs House area. He lived almost entirely without money, skipping out on bills, borrowing from acquaintances, and surviving on his delusions. Millard portrays his days in Washington as a portrait of a man whose grip on reality was dissolving — he believed God was directing his every action and that killing Garfield was a divinely ordained 'removal,' not a murder.
The Riggs House was one of Washington's prominent hotels in the post-Civil War era, located in the heart of the downtown commercial district near the Treasury Building. The area around 15th and G Streets was a center of Washington political and business life in the 1880s.
The original Riggs House no longer stands. The area near 15th and G Streets NW is now part of Washington's downtown commercial district, home to modern office buildings and hotels.
The National Mall — Washington's medical world in Garfield's era
Though Armory Square Hospital no longer stood during Garfield's presidency, its legacy shaped Washington's medical establishment. Millard uses the Civil War medical context to explain the tragic irony of Garfield's treatment — doctors who had survived the war believed in hands-on probing of wounds, unaware of Lister's antiseptic discoveries. The Smithsonian Institution, headquartered in its famous red Castle on the Mall, became relevant when Joseph Henry's old allies and the scientific community were consulted during the crisis over Garfield's deteriorating condition.
Armory Square Hospital operated during the Civil War directly on the Mall near the Smithsonian, caring for the most severely wounded Union soldiers. Walt Whitman famously served as a nurse there. The Smithsonian Institution Building (the Castle) was completed in 1855.
The Smithsonian Institution Building (the Castle) serves as the Smithsonian's visitor information center and is open to the public. It anchors the National Mall and welcomes millions of visitors annually.
Visit: Smithsonian Institution Building (The Castle) (landmark)
Elberon, Long Branch, New Jersey — Garfield's final weeks
Garfield was transported by train from Washington to the seaside cottage at Elberon, New Jersey in early September 1881, in a last desperate effort to revive him with fresh sea air. Thousands of citizens lined the railroad tracks through the night to pay their respects. Millard describes the remarkable scene in which two thousand volunteers worked through the night to lay a special spur of railroad track directly to the Francklyn Cottage so the president would not have to be jolted on a carriage. Garfield died here on September 19, 1881, of blood poisoning — caused almost entirely by the repeated unsterilized probing of his wound by his physicians.
Elberon was a fashionable seaside resort community in Long Branch, New Jersey, frequented by presidents and wealthy families in the Gilded Age. Presidents Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, and McKinley all spent time in Long Branch.
Elberon is a residential neighborhood within Long Branch, New Jersey. The Francklyn Cottage no longer stands, but Long Branch maintains historical markers related to its presidential history. The area is a quiet coastal community.
4th & G Streets NW — Guiteau's imprisonment and trial
After his arrest, Guiteau was held in the Washington Jail, where he became a bizarre celebrity — granting interviews, writing letters, composing an autobiography, and entertaining visitors. Millard depicts Guiteau as simultaneously legally insane by modern standards and yet theatrically self-aware; he reveled in the attention. He survived multiple assassination attempts while in custody, including a man who fired a shot through his cell window. His trial, which began in November 1881, was a media circus — Guiteau cross-examined witnesses himself and declared he acted on God's authority.
The Washington Jail, also known as the District Jail, was located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. It housed federal prisoners throughout the 19th century. Guiteau was hanged in its yard on June 30, 1882.
The old Washington Jail site is now part of the DC Jail complex on D Street SE, not far from the Capitol. The historic jail building has been replaced by modern correctional facilities. The site is not publicly accessible.
Hiram, Ohio — Garfield's rise from poverty to prominence
Millard traces Garfield's remarkable self-made rise, beginning with his years at the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (later Hiram College) in rural Ohio. A poor canal boy from a log cabin, Garfield arrived at Hiram barely able to read and became one of its most brilliant students, eventually returning as its president. His time at Hiram shaped his character — his devotion to learning, his religious faith as a Disciples of Christ minister, and his genuine moral seriousness — traits that made him beloved as a presidential candidate in 1880.
Hiram College was founded in 1850 by the Disciples of Christ and has been a small liberal arts institution in Hiram, Ohio ever since. Garfield served as its principal and later president before his political career took off. The campus retains several 19th-century buildings.
Hiram College continues to operate as a small liberal arts college in Hiram, Ohio. It maintains historical connections to Garfield and welcomes visitors to its campus. The James A. Garfield National Historic Site is a short distance away in Mentor, Ohio.
Visit: Hiram College (historic site)
8095 Mentor Avenue, Mentor, Ohio — Garfield's home and the 'front porch campaign'
Garfield ran his 1880 presidential campaign from the front porch of Lawnfield, his home in Mentor, Ohio — one of the first 'front porch campaigns' in American history. Millard describes how hundreds of thousands of citizens traveled to Mentor to hear Garfield speak, and how he charmed them with his genuine warmth and intellect. Unlike the corrupt spoilsmen who dominated Gilded Age politics, Garfield struck visitors as refreshingly honest. The house also became a media center, with a special telegraph office installed to handle the flood of communications.
Garfield purchased the Mentor farm in 1876 and expanded it significantly. After his assassination, his widow Lucretia preserved it as a memorial. It became one of the first presidential memorial libraries, with an addition built to house Garfield's papers and books.
Lawnfield is operated by the National Park Service as the James A. Garfield National Historic Site. It is open to the public for guided tours and contains original furnishings, Garfield's library, and exhibits on his life and presidency.
Visit: James A. Garfield National Historic Site (historic site)
1325 L Street NW area, Washington, D.C. — Bell's induction balance device
One of the most gripping subplots in Millard's book is Alexander Graham Bell's frantic effort to locate the bullet in Garfield's body using a primitive metal detector — an induction balance device he hastily adapted for medical use. Bell conducted experiments at his Washington laboratory and rushed to the White House and later to Elberon to try to find the bullet. The device worked in tests but gave false readings on Garfield because doctors insisted on testing only one side of his body — the metal springs in his mattress confounded the results. It was a moment of science nearly saving a president.
Alexander Graham Bell maintained laboratories and residences in Washington, D.C. for much of his career after achieving fame with the telephone in 1876. He was deeply embedded in Washington's scientific community and worked with the Smithsonian's Joseph Henry before his death.
Bell's Washington laboratory no longer exists in its original form. The area around L and 14th Streets NW is now a mixed commercial and residential neighborhood. The Alexander Graham Bell House nearby at 1331 Connecticut Avenue is a D.C. landmark.
New York City reference — D.W. Bliss and 19th-century American medicine
Dr. Doctor Willard Bliss — his given first name was actually 'Doctor' — appointed himself chief of Garfield's medical team and refused to cede authority to anyone, including more competent physicians. Millard meticulously documents how Bliss and his colleagues, steeped in pre-Listerian American medicine, repeatedly inserted unsterilized fingers and instruments into the wound searching for the bullet, turning a survivable injury into a fatal infection. Their practice reflected the dominant American surgical culture, typified by institutions like Bellevue, which had resisted Lister's antiseptic revolution far longer than their British counterparts.
Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, founded in 1736, is the oldest public hospital in the United States. In the 19th century it was one of America's most prominent medical institutions and training grounds, though it was slow to adopt Listerian antiseptic techniques that were transforming European surgery.
Bellevue Hospital Center continues to operate as a major public hospital and level-one trauma center on the East Side of Manhattan. It remains affiliated with NYU School of Medicine and serves hundreds of thousands of patients annually.
Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. — Republican convention aftermath and Garfield's election
Millard vividly recounts the chaotic 1880 Republican National Convention in Chicago, where Garfield arrived as a supporter of Treasury Secretary John Sherman but emerged as the dark horse presidential nominee after 36 ballots — to his own apparent astonishment. The factional fury of Roscoe Conkling's Stalwarts, who wanted Grant for a third term, versus the Half-Breeds backing James Blaine set up the poisonous intraparty war that Guiteau believed he was resolving by 'removing' Garfield. The Capitol is where Garfield had served as a congressman and where the political drama of his nomination reverberated.
The U.S. Capitol has been the seat of Congress since 1800, though it was significantly expanded and rebuilt through the 19th century. The dome, completed during the Civil War, became a symbol of the Union's perseverance. Garfield served as a congressman from Ohio for nearly two decades before his presidential nomination.
The U.S. Capitol is open for public tours arranged through congressional offices and the Capitol Visitor Center. It remains the working home of Congress and one of Washington's most visited landmarks.
Visit: U.S. Capitol Visitor Center (historic site)
1st Street & Maryland Avenue SW — Memorial near the Capitol
After Garfield's death, the nation mourned deeply. Millard describes the outpouring of grief that followed — Garfield was genuinely beloved, and his death at the hands of a deranged office-seeker led directly to the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883, the most significant civil service reform in American history. The memorial near the Capitol stands as a testament to what Millard argues was an avoidable tragedy: had Garfield's doctors simply left the wound alone, he almost certainly would have survived.
The James A. Garfield Monument, sculpted by John Quincy Adams Ward, was dedicated in 1887 at the base of Capitol Hill. It depicts Garfield in a toga-like garment with three relief figures representing phases of his career as student, soldier, and statesman.
The Garfield Monument stands on the Capitol grounds at 1st Street and Maryland Avenue SW. It is publicly accessible at all times as part of the Capitol grounds, maintained by the Architect of the Capitol.
Visit: James A. Garfield Monument (monument)
Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois — The convention that made Garfield president
The 1880 Republican National Convention at Chicago's Interstate Exposition Building is one of the great dramatic set-pieces in Millard's book. For 35 ballots, the Stalwarts pushed for Ulysses Grant's return, while the Half-Breeds backed James Blaine. Garfield, nominally there for John Sherman, gave such an electrifying nominating speech that the exhausted delegates turned to him as a compromise candidate on the 36th ballot. Guiteau was in the hall, convinced his marginal presence and a nearly unread pamphlet he had written contributed to Garfield's nomination — a delusion that set his fatal obsession in motion.
The Interstate Exposition Building was Chicago's grand exhibition hall on the lakefront at Michigan Avenue, opened in 1873. It hosted major events including the 1880 Republican convention before being demolished in 1891 to make way for the Art Institute of Chicago.
The site of the Interstate Exposition Building is now occupied by the Art Institute of Chicago, one of the world's great art museums. It sits on Michigan Avenue at Adams Street and is open to the public daily.
Visit: Art Institute of Chicago (museum)
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