Assassinations: Part 2

Charles Guiteau was the assassin of James Garfield. He gave a couple of speeches in New York, after substituting Garfield's name in for the originial Stalwart favorite candidate, Former President Ulysses S. Grant. He then got the idea that when Garfield/Arthur won the election, it was due to his efforts. And with the spoils system of the time, Guiteau CLEARLY deserved a consulship for his CLEARLY influential and CLEARLY extremely important efforts.

Guiteau moved to the nation's capital, because the Republican party and Garfield were forever in his debt. He wasn't showered with honor after honor, so he began to write far too many letters to Garfield and Secretary of State Blaine trying to secure a consulship to Paris. He was ignored and felt cheated, so he began planning to kill the president.

So Guiteau went out and bought a pistol, largely based upon how good it looked, choosing an ivory handle over a wooden one. He assumed it would end up in a museum as "the gun that killed Garfield." (Funny thing is, the Smithsonian lost it.) He aborted a few attempts, but eventually went through with the entire thing on July 2, 1881.

Garfield and political friends arrived at the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad Station in the morning. There were many people in the station, and they hurried towards their train. Guiteau stepped out of the crowd and shot Garfield twice. One grazes his arm. "My God, what is this?" The second gets stuck in his spine. Guiteau tried to leave to get into the cab he previously asked to take him to jail, but he was arrested. (The arresting officer failed to take his gun until they reached the station. We'll leave Patrick Kearney nameless so no one knows who was such an idiot.)

Guiteau's famous line is, "I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts! I did it and I want to be arrested! Arthur is President now!" However, Arthur was not yet president. Garfield didn't die. A primitive air conditioner was created to keep him cool through the summer, and Alexander Graham Bell invented a metal detector specifically for the purpose of trying to locate the bullet in Garfield. It failed to work because the bed he was on had metal springs.

You see, there was no real reason to dig out that bullet, but doctors stuck their dirty hands into the president's back time and time again. The idiot doctors of the time killed him, just because they were trying to find a bullet that he probably could have survived with. Garfield finally died on September 19, 1881, and the "Stalwart of the Stalwarts" had gotten Chester Arthur to be president.

Guiteau's trial was most interesting, as he brought to court with him shenanigans and buffoonery. He asked people watching for advice, spoke out against his defense attorney, sang to the court, and claimed the doctors were the true murderers of Garfield.

Well the last part wasn't so far off.

But the antics of Charles Guiteau could not save him, and he was hung in June of 1882.

He had thought he'd go down in history with everyone knowing his name... Go ask someone who Charles Guiteau is and you'll see how well that went for him.



I actually put more work into this assessment of Guiteau than I did in my final project for AP US History. So this must be worth like 110%!