The Assassination of President Garfiled

 

On July 2, 1881, President James A. Garfield was shot at a Washington, D.C., train station by Charles J. Guiteau, a delusional office-seeker enraged over a denied ambassadorship. Garfield, the 20th U.S. president elected in 1880, lingered for 80 days as doctors probed wounds with unsterilized tools, introducing fatal infections. He died on September 19 from blood poisoning and sepsis. Guiteau was convicted and hanged in 1882. The tragedy exposed patronage system flaws, spurring the 1883 Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, mandating merit-based federal jobs.

Love, Sex and Marriage in Victorian America

The Gilded Age and Revolution