Part 8

ED. T. NICHOLS, Acting Secretary of the Navy.

OFFICIAL BULLETIN OF THE AUTOPSY ON THE BODY OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD.

The following official bulletin was prepared by the surgeons who have been in attendance upon the late President:

By previous Arrangement a post-mortem examination of the body of President Garfield was made this afternoon in the presence and with the assistance of Drs. Hamilton, Agnew, Bliss, Barnes, Woodward, Reyburn, Andrew H. Smith, of Elberon, and Acting Assistant Surgeon D.S. Lamb, of the Army Medical Museum, of Washington. The operation was performed by Dr. Lamb. It was found that the ball, after fracturing the right eleventh rib, had passed through the spinal column in front of the spinal cord, fracturing the body of the first lumbar vertebra, driving a number of small fragments of bone into the adjacent soft parts, and lodging below the pancreas, about 2-1/2 inches to the left of the spine and behind the peritoneum, where it had become completely encysted.

The immediate cause of death was secondary hemorrhage from one of the mesenteric arteries adjoining the track of the ball, the blood rupturing the peritoneum and nearly a pint escaping into the abdominal cavity. This hemorrhage is believed to have been the cause of the severe pain in the lower part of the chest complained of just before death. An abscess cavity 6 inches by 4 in dimensions was found in the vicinity of the gall bladder, between the liver and the transverse colon, which were strongly adherent. It did not involve the substance of the liver, and no communication was found between it and the wound.

A long suppurating channel extended from the external wound, between the loin muscles and the right kidney, almost to the right groin. This channel, now known to be due to the burrowing of pus from the wound, was supposed during life to have been the track of the ball.

On an examination of the organs of the chest evidences of severe bronchitis were found on both sides, with broncho-pneumonia of the lower portions of the right lung, and, though to a much less extent, of the left. The lungs contained no abscesses and the heart no clots. The liver was enlarged and fatty, but not from abscesses. Nor were any found in any other organ except the left kidney, which contained near its surface a small abscess about one-third of an inch in diameter.

In reviewing the history of the case in connection with the autopsy it is quite evident that the different suppurating surfaces, and especially the fractured, spongy tissue of the vertebrae, furnish a sufficient explanation of the septic condition which existed.

D.W. BLISS. J.K. BARNES. J.J. WOODWARD. ROBERT REYBURN. FRANK H. HAMILTON. D. HAYES AGNEW. ANDREW H. SMITH. D.S. LAMB.

FORMAL OATH OF OFFICE ADMINISTERED TO PRESIDENT ARTHUR.

President Chester A. Arthur took the formal oath of office as President of the United States in the room of the Vice-President, in the Capitol, Thursday, September 22, 1881, at 12.10 o'clock p.m. Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite administered the oath prescribed by the Constitution in the presence of the members of the Cabinet, the Justices of the Supreme Court, ex-Presidents Grant and Hayes, General W.T. Sherman, and a number of Senators and Representatives.

ACTION OF CONGRESS.

President Arthur, in his first annual message to the first session of the Forty-seventh Congress, thus announced the death of his predecessor:

An appalling calamity has befallen the American people since their chosen representatives last met in the halls where you are now assembled. We might else recall with unalloyed content the rare prosperity with which throughout the year the nation has been blessed. Its harvests have been plenteous; its varied industries have thriven; the health of its people has been preserved; it has maintained with foreign governments the undisturbed relations of amity and peace. For these manifestations of His favor we owe to Him who holds our destiny in His hands the tribute of our grateful devotion.

To that mysterious exercise of His will which has taken from us the loved and illustrious citizen who was but lately the head of the nation we bow in sorrow and submission.

The memory of his exalted character, of his noble achievements, and of his patriotic life will be treasured forever as a sacred possession of the whole people.

The announcement of his death drew from foreign governments and peoples tributes of sympathy and sorrow which history will record as signal tokens of the kinship of nations and the federation of mankind.

The Senate on December 6, 1881, adopted the following resolution:

Resolved, That a committee of six Senators be appointed on the part of the Senate to join such committee as may be appointed on the part of the House to consider and report by what token of respect and affection it may be proper for the Congress of the United States to express the deep sensibility of the nation to the event of the decease of the late President, James A. Garfield, and that so much of the message of the President as relates to that melancholy event be referred to said committee.

The committee on the part of the Senate, having been subsequently increased to eight, comprised the following-named gentlemen:

John Sherman, of Ohio; George H. Pendleton, of Ohio; Henry L. Dawes, of Massachusetts; Elbridge G. Lapham, of New York; Thomas F. Bayard, of Delaware; John T. Morgan, of Alabama; Omar D. Conger, of Michigan, and Joseph E. Brown, of Georgia.

The House of Representatives on December 6, 1881, passed the following resolution:

Resolved, That a committee of one member from each State represented in this House be appointed on the part of the House to join such committee as may be appointed on the part of the Senate to consider and report by what token of respect and affection it may be proper for the Congress of the United States to express the deep sensibility of the nation to the event of the decease of their late President, James Abram Garfield, and that so much of the message of the President as refers to that melancholy event be referred to said committee.

The committee on the part of the House of Representatives comprised the following-named gentlemen:

William McKinley, Jr., of Ohio; Romualdo Pacheco, of California; James B. Belford, of Colorado; John T. Wait, of Connecticut; William H. Forney, of Alabama; Poindexter Dunn, of Arkansas; Edward L Martin, of Delaware; Robert H.M. Davidson, of Florida; Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia; Joseph G. Cannon, of Illinois; Godlove S. Orth, of Indiana; John A. Kasson, of Iowa; John A. Anderson, of Kansas; John G. Carlisle, of Kentucky; Randall L. Gibson, of Louisiana; Nelson Dingley, jr., of Maine; Robert M. McLane, of Maryland; Benjamin W. Harris, of Massachusetts; Roswell G. Horr, of Michigan; Mark H. Dunnell, of Minnesota; Charles E. Hooker, of Mississippi; Nicholas Ford, of Missouri; Edward K. Valentine, of Nebraska; George W. Cassidy, of Nevada; Joshua G. Hall, of New Hampshire; John Hill, of New Jersey; Samuel S. Cox, of New York; Robert B. Vance, of North Carolina; Melvin C. George, of Oregon; Charles O'Neill, of Pennsylvania; Jonathan Chace, of Rhode Island; D. Wyatt Aiken, of South Carolina; Augustus H. Pettibone, of Tennessee; Roger Q. Mills, of Texas; Charles H. Joyce, of Vermont; J. Randolph Tucker, of Virginia; Benjamin Wilson, of West Virginia, and Charles G. Williams, of Wisconsin.

The following concurrent resolutions were adopted by both Houses of Congress on December 21, 1881:

Whereas the melancholy event of the violent and tragic death of James Abram Garfield, late President of the United States, having occurred during the recess of Congress, and the two Houses sharing in the general grief and desiring to manifest their sensibility upon the occasion of the public bereavement: Therefore

Be it resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That the two Houses of Congress will assemble in the Hall of the House of Representatives on a day and hour to be fixed and announced by the joint committee, and that in the presence of the two Houses there assembled an address upon the life and character of James Abram Garfield, late President of the United States, be pronounced by Hon. James G. Blaine, and that the President of the Senate pro tempore and the Speaker of the House of Representatives be requested to invite the President and ex-Presidents of the United States, the heads of the several Departments, the judges of the Supreme Court, the representatives of the foreign governments near this Government, the governors of the several States, the General of the Army, and the Admiral of the Navy, and such officers of the Army and Navy as have received the thanks of Congress who may then be at the seat of Government to be present on the occasion.