Shots Heard Round The World

This particular subject has developed a genre that is very much all it’s own. This is why I have attempted to keep the scope of the topic limited to it’s more direct consequences to the war. That was a formidable task and in many places I am sure I failed. It is hard to discuss an assassination without at least mentioning some of the conspiracy theories that have sprung up over the years. This is largely because many of them started no sooner than the smoke had cleared and they very much impacted the political climate of the time, public sentiment, and had a direct bearing on the war. Even more important is it’s impact on our view of the conflict because it is very hard to put the war into context if you believe aliens are controlling world events with the enthusiastic support of a cabal of business interests, who meet in the basement of the world bank.

What is certain and uncontroversial is that in late February of 1901, with his inauguration just a little over a month behind him, and the US spring offensives scheduled to commence in only weeks, President Elihu Root departed Washington DC, via a train, on a whistle stop tour that was aimed at improving US morale. While conspiracy theorists love to point out that the US had not suffered any significant disruptions at this time, which to a degree is true, that is only if one takes the situation out of context and forgets everything else that was going on. The US had just finished a presidential election that occurred in a time of war. These are not historically the times that people rise up and overthrow their government since, technically speaking, that is exactly what they had just finished doing. People may have been too tired to take to the streets but, that is not to say they were not tired of the war.

While no one could quite put their finger on why, the simple fact was that the US war machine was lagging. There does not seem to be any evidence that it was due to sabotage or outright opposition to the war. It looks to have been more a case of the majority of the populace lacking the enthusiasm they had shown when it first started. Most of them were simply ready for it to be over with so that their lives could get back to ‘normal.’ Signs of this were everywhere and it is interesting to note that both Confederate spies and the White House were misreading these signs. While it can be easily surmised that Confederate Naval Intelligence was definitely painting this evidence so that their leadership in Richmond could see it with rose colored glasses, since it went to the heart of Confederate War aims, it seems that the White House chose to panic of it’s own accord. There appears to be no other reason for the sudden change of plans that put Root on that train.

His choice of stops are just as easily explainable and logical as well, that is, if you take the situation into account and do not treat it as an isolated case, such as most conspiracy theorists do. Root was mostly touring factories, induction centers, big farms, and was giving speeches from the back platform of his rail car at nearly every town they stopped. He was, most definitely, targeting areas based on voting patterns from the last election. That might sound odd when you consider that he was not going to run for reelection but, remember, all of the House of Representatives, and a third of the Senate would be up for re-election in just under two years. Given the poor showings that the Republicans had on Capital Hill, in the last election, one can understand a desire to shore up these weak spots.

There is also the simple possibility that Root’s motivation for these stops had little too do with the next mid term election. He simply could have been more interested in the verdict of the big show, the war. His desire to win it could be all the motivation that he needed. Some have argued that Root was not that altruistic and my counter to this is simple, you don’t have to be. Root was now on his second term and there is little doubt that he was concerned with what history was going to have to say about him. He had to know that his Presidency and this war were going to be irrevocably linked so he had personal motivations to end it in the next four years and, with a favorable outcome for his nation.

The single biggest point of controversy is what would ultimately become his final stop in this tour. There has been much clamoring, over the years, about his choice of the hospital at Fort Harrison, Indiana. Many have argued that Root would not wish to associate himself with casualty lists that had become so hated in the US and, indeed, in every belligerent nation. It has been said that he would have never risked a photograph with soldiers who were missing limbs. While every war had produced such veterans, this one had easily tripled the number, percentage wise, of those who would be walking around after, minus a vital body part. This was not due to some horrific new weapon but, ironically, due to advances in medicine which were saving more wounded than in previous conflicts. At the time, no one was really aware of this and the disfigured soldier was rapidly becoming a symbol of the war in many countries, including the US.

One can easily dismiss claims that Root’s visit to Harrison was some kind of set up. Root had already posed for many photographs with wounded and disfigured veterans. The claim, that he would not do such a thing, only emerged some sixty years after the war, and was made by an author of a book who thought it odd but, like most conspiracy theorists, had not bothered to do much research. Most of the pictures of Root and disabled veterans were not the kind of thing that Presidential Libraries like to make public. They had many such portraits but, most were kept filed away and not on display. His stop at the hospital was logical enough and, while this may have been the first, he also had several others on his itinerary but, tragically, would never reach them.

The army hospital also serves as a point of conspiracy for the assassin as well. I first introduced us to Frank Zholhus when he was a member of the Ohio Territorial Guard that defended the J. Roebling Bridge from the Confederate attack just a little over a year before his date with infamy. Again, there have been many who claim it suspicious that he was even at the hospital on the day in question but, again, I point out this only appears to be the case until the evidence is scrutinized and put into the proper context.

It is true that Zholhus was not seriously wounded during the Cincinnati Raid but, it was enough to require a six week trip to the hospital, two surgeries, and over a years worth of observation afterwards. All of this can easily be found in his service record which has been on public display for a half century. This is where conspiracy theorists like to point out that he was a member of the Ohio Militia and not Indiana, hence he should have never been assigned to Fort Harrison in the first place. While this might sound good, one only need to look at the law of the time to understand why he was there. Zholhus was wounded while defending a bridge that crossed state lines. He, like the rest of his unit, was federalized for that duty and, oddly enough, they fell under the authority of the US Department of Agriculture and not the US Army. There were a lot of bureaucratic reasons why this was the case but, it did qualify Zholhus for any federal compensation including full Veteran’s benefits and, in this case, US Army medical care.

There are those that toss all of that aside and then point out that while Zholhus was living in Indiana, under a doctor’s care, there was nothing wrong with him. That is true but, it is also something that we now know more about, after his medical records have been examined and, quite literally, under a microscope. Zholhus did suffer from any number of infections while he was recovering, including a very nasty infection of staphylococcus that he most likely picked up while in the hospital and probably from a physician. Some have used that as evidence that the records have been changed but, staph infections had been known about for twenty years before Zholhus was wounded. The fact that he recovered from it, without antibiotics which were not yet invented, is impressive but, not impossible as there is a twenty percent recovery rate from the strain that we believe he had.

All of the medical evidence that is used to point towards a conspiracy has one common thread. It is people looking over their shoulder with the advantages that hindsight affords, and with many decades of medical advances that take the situation out of context. The irony in this is that it was a medical advance that kept the man in Indianapolis. It was due to a rather strange theory developed by a number of physicians, in the 1890’s, and was rooted in one of the most useful medical advances of all time, the X-Ray. I do realize that there are many who think this ludicrous and, for them, I simply point to the fact that no matter what you think of it, the simple fact is that Zholus was ordered to Indiana, and diagnosed, long before Root even knew he would be reelected let alone make this good will tour.

What Zholhus was thought to be suffering from was a result of the fact that he was actually X-Rayed by a doctor that had little experience with the device and almost no experience in reading the finished product. You have to remember how new X-Ray machines were at the time and they were still not so common in Army hospitals. Almost no Army physicians had experience using them and, after the first few pictures, they began to make a common mistake that physicians had been making since the X-Ray machine was first introduced. You see doctors learn their anatomy with cadavers that are lying on a table. As a result, the organs are all flattened and positioned in much the way you see in books. The reality is that while we are walking around they obey the laws of gravity and do not look anything like the way they do in those nice neat pictures. The first X-Ray machines required that you stand up and, when the first organs were viewed in the pictures, the doctors were horrified at what they saw. Many went so far as to write this up as a new disease and many people were placed in these hideous contraptions to help push their organs back into place.

It did not take long before some doctor thought the matter through and realized that what they saw in X-Rays was perfectly normal. Still, medicine is a science and it has competing schools of thought. It is also bound by the same realities as other professions in that a lot of older physicians were not trusting of new devices or, in this case, new explanations. Zholhus was one of the first to be X-Rayed at the hospital in Cincinnati. He took several subsequent trips to the machine and, apparently, the doctors there thought he suffered from this strange deformity of the organs. The hospital at Fort Harrison was for long term care and, hence, he was ordered there.

This is not so ominous and, given the complications from his wounds, Zholhus was probably lucky that this happened because he did recover from those complications. It is very possible that he would not have, had he remained in Ohio. Many have pointed out that he was discharged from the hospital long before he had his run in with the President but, this is not true. In order to free up bed space, Zholhus was discharged from the actual hospital but, not his doctors care. He was one of many who were living in either the barracks or local housing, drawing a soldiers wage, and doing whatever in between doctors visits. There was nothing ominous about it.

It is also true that Zholhus was not scheduled to see the doctor on the day in question. Many have pointed to this as unusual but, Zholhus had complete access to the hospital any time he wished, had been there numerous times without appointment and, again, this is another case of taking things out of context. The President was going to be there that day and almost everyone that had any connection to the hospital showed up to shake Root’s hand. The presence of one Frank Zholhus would not have sent up any red flags, at all, and in fact, his absence would have looked more suspicious.

Finally, there is the fact that Zholhus had a gun. The thirty-two caliber revolver, that he kept in his pocket, is used by conspiracy theorists as the ultimate evidence that this man did not act alone. They point out that there is no way that Zholhus could have gotten so close to the president with the weapon, then produce it just as he clasped hands, for a shake, and empty all five shots into the President’s chest. In fact, many question why Zholhus even had a weapon at all. Both of these facts are easily explainable once the details are examined.

Today we are used to a President that is tightly guarded by professionals that do nothing else. Root’s only security that day were two bodyguards that had been hired, by the government, from the Pinkerton Agency. While both of these guards were top notch for their time, there were no protocols on how to defend against assassins. It was events, like this one, that led to the science of defending against such things. The fact that Zholhus got a weapon so close cannot be seen as requiring a conspiracy when you consider what happened to Zholhus in the immediate aftermath. This proves that not only did he get a weapon close to Root but, so did nearly everyone else in the crowd. Doctors removed thirty seven bullets from the corpse of Zholhus, all the result of hospital patients shooting him, only seconds after he opened fire on Root. The only thing this really tells us is, if you’re going to shoot a head of state, do not do it around a crowd of agitated and wounded soldiers.

That takes us back to why he had a gun in the first place and, ultimately, his motives which have been called into question since that day. The fact that he actually died before the President is not just ironic but, sadly, it means we will never know, for certain, why Frank Zholhus decided to shoot Elihu Root. His ownership of the weapon is not such a big mystery however. Many of the soldiers in his situation drank heavily and spent a great deal of time in saloons. At the time, the local saloons had a reputation for setting up soldiers to be robbed. This not only explains the weapon Zholhus had but, the ones that killed him as well.

This ultimately brings us to motivation. Many have claimed that Zholhus had none. Again, I say this is only if the man is taken out of context. In reviewing his story it is quite obvious what his motivation was, even if, we can never prove this conclusively. The man simply had a miserable life, was the victim of one bad turn after another, and had just finished dealing with what should have been a simple medical problem that was made worse by the very system trying to cure him. While such circumstances would not drive the majority of us to kill, it could easily be the case with a man who was on the edge to begin with. When you see this in the context of the times, with national leaders being made the very face of the war, the target for Frank’s ills becomes understandable. After all, that was why Root was there in the first place, playing the face of the war. If the extraordinary, and sometimes almost improbable, circumstances that led these two men to that fateful day had not occurred, there is every reason to think that it might have been another shooter, at another stop, at another time.

If Elihu Root was not exactly a cherished leader in his time, his memory as a President certainly became one. While his whistle stop morale tour had not shown any signs of accomplishing it’s goals before Indianapolis, his very last day of it, at Fort Harrison, accomplished everything and more. Root went from being the man who started this accursed war to near saint hood and almost as soon as his heart stopped. You could almost surmise that, until the assassination, the American public was asking themselves why they were fighting this war. Ironically, Frank Zholhus gave them the strongest reason ever. It has also been suggested that Zholhus was an anarchist and he was trying to start a revolution. Oddly enough he did, only, if he were truly an anarchist, it was not the revolution he was intending.