The Assassination of President James A. Garfield

James A. Garfield was the twentieth President of the United States. For a tragically short time, he was the twentieth President of the United States. The story of his assassination is normally just a brief paragraph in most history books, but the death of Garfield is a tragedy that bears a closer look.

James Garfield was born on November 19, 1831, in Orange, Ohio. He began his political career in the Ohio State Senate from 1859 to 1861. He then served for a brief time as an officer in the Union Army during the Civil War. Garfield was a member of the US House of Representatives from 1863 to 1880, and served one year in the US Senate in 1880. He was elected President and was sworn in March 4, 1881.

Fast forward four months to July 2^nd. Garfield was at the Washington train depot preparing to leave for a summer retreat on the New Jersey beaches. As the President made his way through the station, a man named Charles Guiteau ran out and fired two shots at near point blank range at Garfield's back. The first round hit Garfield in the arm, and the second found the President's abdomen. Garfield shouted "My God, what is this?" and collapsed to the floor, fully conscious and in great pain. Guiteau was angered at being rejected for the post of Ambassador to France: a rejection the President was not even aware of.

What followed was a succession of rather brutal "treatments" by prominent physicians of the Washington, D.C. area. The first Doctor on the scene gave the President brandy and spirits of ammonia, which immediately caused Garfield to vomit. Then one D.W. Bliss, at the time a leading Washington doctor, came on the scene and promptly probed the abdominal wound with a metal instrument looking for the bullet. Dr. Bliss managed to get the probe stuck between the ribs of Garfield's body as he turned it slowly. The probe was pulled out causing even more pain. Bliss then inserted his finger in the wound, widening it further, still without finding the bullet. Garfield was then moved to the White House for further treatment.

A full complement of sixteen doctors literally swarmed all over the President and all seemed to want to probe, gouge, and otherwise "treat" the president. Garfield complained of numbness in his legs and feet, pointing to a spinal injury. However, the doctors still maintained that the bullet was in the abdomen, and kept the search going. He was repeatedly probed with fingers and dirty instruments, all without the use of any anesthetic. Garfield's temperature soon elevated. It was decided to move him from the oppressively hot, humid, mosquito ridden White House to a house on the New Jersey shore.

The house Garfield was going to was offered by an English nobleman. The twenty room house was off of the main rail line, thus a special track was laid right to the front door of the house. The engine was not powerful enough to push the rail cars up the steep slope to the house. Hundreds of local people who had come to see the President's train immediately began to push the three cars up to the house.

Once Garfield was moved by train to the place on the New Jersey shore, the doctors continued to work on him. Infections had set in, and often the president had to endure the painful lancing of pus-filled internal sores. The doctors never found the bullet while Garfield lived his last days. By the time he died on September 19^th, eighty days after he was shot, he had wasted away from his normal weight of 210 pounds to a mere (for him) 130 pounds. What had started as a single small gunshot wound to the ribcage was transformed by the doctors into a twenty inch long infection racked gash from his ribs to his groin.

Garfield finally died on the night of September 19, 1881. He had a massive heart attack a little after 10 o'clock in the evening. Dr. Bliss, who had first probed the wounded body of the President in the Washington train depot back in July, was there at the time of Garfield's death. Garfield's wife, Lucretia, was also present, and was able to comfort her husband before he died at 10:35 PM.

Thus the United States lost its 20^th President. The sad tale of his treatment after he was shot is typical of the status of medical treatment of the times.

Sources:
"The Death Of President Garfield, 1881" EyeWitness to History, eyewitnesstohistory.com (1999)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Garfield