Explore the real-world places that appear in Destiny of the Republic 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, White House, James A. Garfield Monument, Elberon Hotel & Francklyn Cottage, Alexander Graham Bell's Washington Laboratory and 9 more.
6th St & B St NW (site) — Scene of the assassination, July 2, 1881
On the morning of July 2, 1881, Charles Guiteau stalked President Garfield through the ladies' waiting room of this station as Garfield walked with Secretary of State James Blaine toward a waiting train. Guiteau fired two shots at point-blank range, striking Garfield in the back. The president collapsed, crying out, 'My God, what is this?' Guiteau was immediately seized by a bystander while Garfield lay bleeding on the grimy floor, his presidency shattered after just four months.
The Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station stood at 6th Street and B Street NW (now Constitution Avenue) from 1873 to 1908. It was a grand Victorian-era structure that served as Washington's primary rail terminus. The station was demolished when Union Station opened in 1908.
The National Gallery of Art's West Building now occupies the site where Garfield was shot. A small plaque once marked the spot. The location sits on the National Mall, one of the most visited corridors in America.
Visit: National Gallery of Art (museum)
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW — Garfield's seat of power and sickroom
The White House served as the battleground for Garfield's presidency and his medical ordeal. After being shot, he was carried back to an upstairs bedroom where Dr. Willard Bliss — a domineering, self-appointed physician — took command of his care. Chester Arthur, Garfield's vice president, lurked in the shadows of New York politics while the stricken president lay sweating in the White House heat, his condition worsening as Bliss probed the wound with unwashed fingers, introducing lethal infection. Lucretia Garfield nursed her husband with fierce devotion.
The White House has been the official residence and workplace of U.S. presidents since John Adams in 1800. In 1881, it lacked air conditioning and was notoriously hot and disease-prone in summer. The building has been continuously occupied and renovated across American history.
The White House remains the official residence and office of the U.S. president. Portions are open for public tours by advance arrangement through congressional offices. It is one of the most recognized buildings in the world.
Visit: The White House (historic site)
Capitol Grounds, First St NE — Monument to the martyred president
Garfield served as a beloved congressman and then reluctant presidential nominee, representing the best of American democratic ideals. His funeral and mourning drew unprecedented national grief. Millard describes how Garfield's death galvanized the country to finally pass civil service reform — the Pendleton Act of 1883 — making his martyrdom the catalyst for dismantling the corrupt spoils system he had fought against in life. Congress erected this monument in his honor on the Capitol grounds he had long served.
The bronze statue of Garfield was sculpted by John Quincy Adams Ward and dedicated in 1887. It stands on the southwest grounds of the U.S. Capitol, facing the Mall. The pedestal features three allegorical figures representing aspects of Garfield's life: scholar, soldier, and statesman.
The Garfield Monument remains on the U.S. Capitol grounds and is accessible to the public. It is one of several statues honoring presidents and historical figures around the Capitol complex. Visitors can walk up to the monument during daylight hours.
Visit: James A. Garfield Monument (monument)
Elberon, Long Branch, New Jersey — Garfield's final refuge
As Garfield's condition deteriorated through the brutal Washington summer, doctors and advisors decided that sea air might save him. In a remarkable feat of collective will, thousands of volunteers — residents, railroad workers, and soldiers — laid nearly a mile of railroad track overnight so a special train could carry the suffering president directly to the oceanside cottage at Elberon. He arrived to cheering crowds and cool Atlantic breezes, but it was too late. Garfield died at Francklyn Cottage on September 19, 1881, with Lucretia and his physicians at his bedside.
Long Branch and Elberon, New Jersey were among the most fashionable seaside resorts of the Gilded Age, attracting multiple U.S. presidents including Grant, Hayes, and Garfield. The Francklyn Cottage was a large Victorian retreat where Garfield spent his final weeks.
The cottage where Garfield died no longer stands. The site is now a residential neighborhood in the borough of Deal, New Jersey. A historical marker commemorates the location of Garfield's death near the original site.
1325 L Street NW (approximate) — Bell's headquarters during the bullet search
Working at frantic speed in Washington laboratories and workshops, Alexander Graham Bell — already world-famous for the telephone — raced to build an induction balance device capable of locating the bullet lodged in Garfield's back. Millard describes Bell's obsessive all-night work sessions, his collaboration with Simon Newcomb of the Naval Observatory, and his anguished early tests on Civil War veterans. When Bell held his device over Garfield's body, it hummed — but the signal was confused by the metal springs in the new White House mattress, leading to a tragically inaccurate reading.
Bell maintained a residence and working laboratory in Washington D.C. during the early 1880s as he continued developing inventions following the telephone's success. Washington was a hub of scientific activity and Bell cultivated relationships with the Smithsonian Institution and the National Academy of Sciences.
The specific buildings Bell used no longer stand, but the area around L Street NW is part of Washington's central business district. The Smithsonian Institution, with which Bell had close ties, maintains exhibits on his life and work at the National Museum of American History.
19th & B Streets SE — Guiteau's imprisonment and trial
After being tackled at the train station, Charles Guiteau was imprisoned in the District of Columbia Jail where he became an instant celebrity, granting interviews, writing letters, and dictating his autobiography. Millard portrays him as a delusional schemer who genuinely believed God had commanded him to shoot Garfield and that he would be celebrated as a patriot. During his sensational murder trial — held after Garfield's death — Guiteau argued he had not killed the president; the incompetent doctors had. He was found guilty and hanged on June 30, 1882.
The District of Columbia Jail, located in Southeast Washington, served as the main detention facility for the capital through the 19th and early 20th centuries. High-profile prisoners including conspirators in the Lincoln assassination had been held in the same facility.
The original jail building no longer stands in its 1881 form. The DC Correctional Complex at a nearby location on D Street SE continues to serve as the city's jail. The area is not open to the public.
Hiram, Ohio — Garfield's transformative college and professorship
Millard describes how Garfield arrived at the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute — later Hiram College — as a poor, determined young man from the Ohio frontier, quickly distinguishing himself as a brilliant student. He rose to become a professor of classical languages and then, at just 26, the college's president. It was here that his astonishing intellectual gifts, his oratory, and his moral seriousness were forged. Students and faculty adored him, and his departure for the Civil War was a moment of communal grief for the small campus.
Hiram College was founded in 1850 by the Disciples of Christ denomination, which Garfield belonged to his entire life. The college remains a small liberal arts institution in Portage County, Ohio, and preserves its connection to Garfield as its most famous alumnus.
Hiram College is still an operating liberal arts college. The campus maintains several historical buildings and resources related to Garfield's time there. Visitors are welcome on the campus, and the college's archives hold materials related to Garfield's years as student and president.
Visit: Hiram College (historic site)
8095 Mentor Avenue, Mentor, Ohio — Garfield's home and campaign headquarters
Millard recounts how Garfield conducted his famous 'front porch campaign' from Lawnfield, his Mentor, Ohio farm. Rather than touring the country, Garfield received delegations of voters who traveled to meet him at home, charming them with his warmth, intellect, and evident decency. Lucretia was his indispensable partner here. When Lucretia fell gravely ill with malaria in the spring of 1881, Garfield rushed from Washington to her bedside at Lawnfield with the devotion of a man who had finally understood the depth of his love for her.
Garfield purchased the Mentor farm in 1876 and expanded the house significantly. The property became known as Lawnfield after journalists dubbed it during the 1880 campaign. After Garfield's death, Lucretia transformed part of the house into a memorial library to preserve his papers.
Lawnfield is now the James A. Garfield National Historic Site, administered by the National Park Service. The historic home is open for guided tours and contains period furnishings, Garfield's original library, and exhibits on his life and presidency. It is one of the most significant presidential historic sites in Ohio.
Visit: James A. Garfield National Historic Site (historic site)
Capitol Hill — Garfield's political career and reluctant nomination
Garfield served as a congressman from Ohio for nearly two decades and was a dominant figure on the House floor, admired for his oratory and his reformist integrity. At the 1880 Republican National Convention in Chicago, he attended as a supporter of John Sherman but gave such a magnificent nominating speech that the convention erupted in his own name — nominating him for president against his will. Millard captures his anguished cry to the delegates to stop, and his private despair at the nomination that would ultimately cost him his life.
The U.S. Capitol Building has served as the seat of the legislative branch since 1800. By Garfield's era, the great cast-iron dome added during the Civil War was complete. The building was a center of the fierce Gilded Age political battles over patronage, civil service, and Reconstruction.
The U.S. Capitol is open to visitors through the Capitol Visitor Center, which opened in 2008 beneath the East Front Plaza. Free tours of the building and historic chambers are available by reservation. It remains one of the most visited landmarks in Washington D.C.
Visit: U.S. Capitol Visitor Center (historic site)
1000 Jefferson Drive SW — Scientific hub of Bell's Washington world
Alexander Graham Bell was deeply embedded in Washington's scientific community, with close ties to the Smithsonian and its secretary Joseph Henry, who had encouraged Bell's early telephonic experiments. Millard describes the network of American scientists — Bell, Simon Newcomb, and others — who mobilized in the summer of 1881 to try to save the president using the best available technology. The Smithsonian represented the hopeful promise of American scientific ingenuity that Bell embodied.
The Smithsonian Institution Building, known as 'The Castle,' was completed in 1855 and designed by James Renwick Jr. in Romanesque Revival style. It served as the original home of the Smithsonian's collections and offices. Joseph Henry, the first Smithsonian secretary, is buried on the grounds.
The Smithsonian Institution Building serves as the information center for the entire Smithsonian complex on the National Mall. It is free and open to the public daily. The building contains the tomb of James Smithson, the institution's founder, and an orientation gallery for visitors.
Visit: Smithsonian Institution Building (The Castle) (museum)
14th St & Constitution Ave NW — Preserves artifacts of the Garfield era
Millard's narrative arc from the telephone to the bullet-detection device represents a pivotal moment in American technological history. The museum holds Alexander Graham Bell's early telephone instruments and related artifacts from the era, providing physical context for Bell's frantic efforts to build the induction balance that might have saved Garfield's life. The objects of this period — the president's blood-stained coat, Bell's telephone apparatus — are relics of the moment when science and politics collided.
The National Museum of American History opened in 1964 as the Museum of History and Technology. It holds more than 1.8 million objects spanning American political, scientific, cultural, and military history. Bell's original telephone patent model is among its most prized scientific artifacts.
The museum is open free to the public daily on the National Mall. It contains the original Star-Spangled Banner, Alexander Graham Bell's telephone apparatus, a first ladies' gown collection, and countless other artifacts. The museum is one of the most visited in the world.
Visit: National Museum of American History (museum)
Fifth Avenue Hotel, 23rd St & Fifth Ave, New York City — Seat of machine politics
Millard portrays Senator Roscoe Conkling — the imperious, vain boss of New York's Republican machine — as the great villain of Garfield's political life. Conkling operated from his New York power base, dispatching Chester Arthur as his loyal lieutenant to the vice presidency. When Garfield defied Conkling by appointing his own man to the lucrative New York Customs House collectorship, Conkling resigned from the Senate in fury — unwittingly handing Guiteau the delusional grievance that drove him to shoot Garfield, believing it would restore Conkling's faction to power.
The Fifth Avenue Hotel at Madison Square was the epicenter of Gilded Age New York Republican politics. Conkling and his Stalwart machine operated extensively from Manhattan. The hotel was demolished in 1908 and replaced by a commercial building.
The site of the Fifth Avenue Hotel is now part of the bustling Flatiron District near Madison Square Park. The area contains restaurants, offices, and the public Madison Square Park. The original hotel no longer exists.
Orange, Essex County, New Jersey — Guiteau's delusional letter-writing campaign
Before the shooting, Charles Guiteau descended into paranoid fixation, convinced that his unsolicited support of Garfield in the 1880 campaign entitled him to the ambassadorship to Austria or at minimum the Paris consulship. Millard traces his pathetic wanderings through New York and New Jersey, boarding at cheap rooming houses and writing increasingly unhinged letters to Secretary of State Blaine and President Garfield himself. Guiteau borrowed a dollar here and there, evaded creditors, and purchased the .44 British Bulldog revolver he chose partly because he thought it would 'look good in a museum.'
Orange, New Jersey was a middle-class commuter suburb of New York in the 1880s, connected by rail to Manhattan. It was one of many northeastern towns through which the rootless, itinerant Guiteau drifted in the months before the assassination.
Orange is now part of the dense urban landscape of Essex County, New Jersey, adjacent to Newark. It is a working-class city with no particular commemorations of its connection to the Garfield assassination.
Moreland Hills, Cuyahoga County, Ohio — Log cabin birthplace
Millard opens Garfield's story with his extraordinary origins — born in a log cabin in the wilderness of Orange Township in 1831 to Abram and Eliza Garfield. His father died when James was just eighteen months old, leaving Eliza to raise four children in grinding poverty on the Ohio frontier. Millard describes young James hauling canal boats as a towpath driver, reading voraciously at night, and vowing to escape poverty through sheer force of mind. His rise from this raw frontier beginning to the presidency is presented as a quintessential American story.
Orange Township in Cuyahoga County was part of the Western Reserve, settled primarily by New Englanders in the early 19th century. The area was frontier woodland when Garfield was born in 1831. The township has since been incorporated into the Village of Moreland Hills.
A historical marker in Moreland Hills, Ohio commemorates Garfield's birthplace near the original site of his family's log cabin. The area is now a quiet residential suburb of Cleveland. The nearby Garfield Park Reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks system preserves some natural land in the region.
Visit: Garfield's Birthplace Historical Marker (historic site)
More by Candice Millard: Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President locations map · All Candice Millard books
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