James Garfield, The President Who Died In Office 80 Days After He Was Shot
Public DomainPresident James Garfield in 1881.
The next president who died in office was James Garfield. Like Lincoln, he was shot by an assassin. But unlike Lincoln, who died nine hours later, Garfield lingered between life and death for two months after he was fatally wounded.
In July 1881, Garfield had only been president for three months. A Union general during the Civil War and a former Republican congressman, Garfield had been elected as a “dark horse” candidate and was struggling to get his bearings in the White House. But in the early days of his administration, he’d attracted the attention of a mentally ill lawyer named Charles Guiteau.
Guiteau, seized by the delusion that he had played an important role in getting Garfield elected, decided to kill the president when Garfield failed to “reward” Guiteau for his “effort.” After buying a pistol he thought would look good in a museum, Guiteau learned that Garfield planned to take a train from the Baltimore and Potomac Station at around 9 a.m. on July 2, 1881. And there, Guiteau put his plan into action.
Public DomainA depiction of the assassination of James Garfield on July 2, 1881.
When Garfield entered the station with two of his sons and Secretary of State James G. Blaine, Guiteau pounced. He shot the president two times, first in the elbow and then in the lower back.
Guiteau was quickly apprehended, and Garfield, fatally wounded, seemed resigned to his fate. “I thank you, doctor,” he told one of the physicians who came to treat him, “but I am a dead man.”
The president’s doctors did not give up so easily — though they probably made the matter worse. Probing the wound in Garfield’s back with unwashed fingers in hopes of finding the bullet, they likely made the president more vulnerable to infection. Other treatments, including giving Garfield quinine, morphine, and alcohol — even champagne — only made Garfield sicker, and he slowly began to waste away.
Just over 11 weeks after his assassination, James Garfield died on Sept. 19, 1881, at the age of 49.
Public DomainCharles Guiteau, the mentally ill failed lawyer who assassinated James Garfield.
His assassin, Guiteau, then tried to argue that the fault for the president’s death lay with Garfield’s doctors, not him, stating, “I did not kill the president. The doctors did that. I merely shot him.” But a jury found his argument unconvincing. Guiteau was hanged on June 30, 1882.
