Squirrel Soup

I recently watched a documentary on the topic of the assassination of President James Garfield. Of all the scenes in the video, and accounts of that particular season in our history, one scenario stood out.

All of America turned their attention to the president’s wound, and his struggle to remain in the land of the living. 

Hearing that the president took a little milk, and seemed the better for it, a diary company presented the White House with a milk cow, and it, subsequently, grazed on the front law of the White House.

Once during the period in which President Garfield struggled for his life, his wife, Lucretia, prepared a rather unusual meal for him.

… Squirrel Soup

Apparently, the president possessed a fondness for the small rodent; (at least the dead, cooked carcass of the perky little gray thing).

Having been moved to tears by Garfield’s plight, a couple of North Carolina children rendered the ultimate tribute; in order to come alongside their dying president.

For you see, the young sisters made the inestimably sacrificial decision to have their pet squirrels euthanized, rendered into soup, and forwarded to the White House to fulfill the gastronomic desires of the ailing President Garfield!

I suppose “the last full measure of devotion” applies to both man and beast, alike.


By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from (Mc)Donald's Daily Diary. Vol. 34. Copyright pending

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