David Frum

I mean, he had been a very great war hero.

He behaved very

gallantly the Battle of Chickamauga especially, but he was not a political hero.

He was a person who balanced and served political expediency.

There's a scene in the series that when you put it into context shows what Garfield was and what he wasn't.

So there's a scene in the series where Garfield is visited

by men, African-American men in what appear to be union uniforms.

And they appear to be union veterans.

And he says to them, and I tell you now in the closing days of this campaign that I would rather be with you and defeated than against you and victorious.

Well, that's very inspiring.

That's very inspiring.

Did it happen?

So I pulled off my shelf the 1978 biography by Alan Peskin and looked up the incident.

And sure enough, it did happen.

And those words were spoken.

but something else didn't happen.

So the people to whom he spoke those words were not union veterans.

They were a group of singers from Fisk University, an all black college who had come to serenade him.

And he thanked them for the serenade and he gave them a little speech afterwards.

And he ended the speech by saying those words that the series quoted.