Okla-homey
7/2/2007, 06:34 AM
July 2, 1881 President Garfield is shot
http://img297.echo.cx/img297/3392/aanslaggarfieldgroot1er.gif
On this day 126 years ago, President James Garfield is shot in the back at the Baltimore & Potomac train station by a crazed assassin. With the bullet lodged near his pancreas, the president never recovered and eventually died on September 18, 1881. The assassin, Charles Guiteau, was immediately apprehended at the train station.
http://img297.echo.cx/img297/1303/a1garfieldbullet6yg.gif
President Garfield's wound
http://img297.echo.cx/img297/1341/a1garfieldverts3rh.gif
Garfield's 13 & 14th vertebrae with bullet path depicted by red plastic dowel on display at the National Museum of Military Medicine at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in DC. (An adjunct museum within the Smithsonian system)
It's worth noting that the wound was not necessarily fatal, but "old school" physicians who attended the stricken president didn't buy into the new-fangled "bacteria" theory. At least two doctors probed the wound with their unwashed and unsterile bare fingers as well as unsterile surgical tools. Neither sterile dressings nor disinfectants were employed in the president's care. Further, in attempts to ascertain the precise location of the bullet, the small caliber bullets path was enlarged by several crude fingerings. The resultant raging infection ultimately killed Garfield.
James A. Garfield was born in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, in 1831. Fatherless at two, he later drove canal boat teams, somehow earning enough money for an education. He was graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts in 1856, and he returned to the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (later Hiram College) in Ohio as a classics professor. Within a year he was made its president.
Garfield was elected to the Ohio Senate in 1859 as a Republican. During the secession crisis, he advocated coercing the seceding states back into the Union.
In 1862, when Union military victories had been few, he successfully led a brigade at Middle Creek, Kentucky, against Confederate troops. At 31, Garfield became a brigadier general, two years later a major general of volunteers.
http://img297.echo.cx/img297/1276/4a40410r8ro.jpg
Garfield as Civil War brigadier general
Meanwhile, in 1862, Ohioans elected him to Congress. President Lincoln persuaded him to resign his commission: It was easier to find major generals than to obtain effective Republicans for Congress. Garfield repeatedly won re-election for 18 years, and became the leading Republican in the House.
In the election of 1880, the Republican ticket looked like it would boil down to a fight between former president Ulysses S. Grant and the more moderate James G. Blaine. Garfield surprised everyone, however, by earning more and more votes in the convention balloting.
Garfileld won the presidential nomination, and eventually the election, against Democrat Winfield S. Hancock, a Civil War hero. The election was the closest on record. Garfield won by the narrowest of margins, and only with the help of the New York political boss Roscoe Conkling, with whom Garfield had agreed to consult on party appointments. Had New York or Indiana gone donkey, Garfield would have lost the presidency.
http://img297.echo.cx/img297/8510/election18809ek.gif
1880 election results. It was a squeaker! Garfield vs Hancock. Hancock Dems in teal blue, Garfield GOP in green
Since Garfield was struck down four months into his term, historians can only speculate as to what his presidency might have been like. Garfield did have time to appoint his cabinet, however, and in doing so, he refused to cave in to party politics, enraging Senator Conkling, who resigned in protest. Had Garfield served his term, historians speculate that he would have been determined to move toward civil service reform and carry on in the clean government tradition of President Hayes.
http://img297.echo.cx/img297/9882/garfield6in.jpg
President Garfield
He was also determined to fight for the civil rights of black Southerners, as he made clear in his 1881 inaugural address. Unfortunately, he is best remembered for his assassination. And because his killer was a frustrated office-seeker, Garfield's greatest legacy was the impact of his death on moving the nation to reform government patronage. Garfield County, in NW Oklahoma is named for the assassinated president.
Now a little more about the nutty assassin:
http://img297.echo.cx/img297/6683/guiteauport7bi.jpg
Assassin Guiteau
Charles Guiteau, a deeply disturbed man, had been tracking President Garfield for a while. When Garfield was running for office, Guiteau sent him a deranged speech to read to his audience. Not surprisingly, Garfield never read the speech, but Guiteau insisted that it was instrumental in getting him elected and demanded the position of ambassador to France in return. :eek:
Since the White House did not have any real security in place at this time, Guiteau became a frequent visitor and even met the president on one occasion. He began to harass the Secretary of State every day about the French ambassadorial position. When he was summarily rejected, Guiteau decided to seek revenge by shooting the president.
He later told authorities that he followed Garfield for weeks, once sitting directly behind him at church. After checking out the prisons in Washington, D.C., to make sure the accommodations would suit him, Guiteau made his attack on the president on July 2. Despite strong indications of insanity, prosecutors tried Guiteau for murder.
Acting as his own attorney during the 10-week trial, Guiteau screamed incessantly and sometimes danced around the courtroom. But the court did not put a stop to his antics, even after he called the prosecutors "dirty liars." During his closing argument, he claimed that God had told him to kill the president. When the jury pronounced him guilty of murder, Guiteau shouted at them, "You are all low, consummate jackasses!"
Guiteau was hanged on June 30, 1882. Two hundred spectators at the jail watched as hundreds more gathered outside. From the gallows, Guiteau recited a poem in a high, childlike voice, "I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad."
http://img297.echo.cx/img297/3392/aanslaggarfieldgroot1er.gif
On this day 126 years ago, President James Garfield is shot in the back at the Baltimore & Potomac train station by a crazed assassin. With the bullet lodged near his pancreas, the president never recovered and eventually died on September 18, 1881. The assassin, Charles Guiteau, was immediately apprehended at the train station.
http://img297.echo.cx/img297/1303/a1garfieldbullet6yg.gif
President Garfield's wound
http://img297.echo.cx/img297/1341/a1garfieldverts3rh.gif
Garfield's 13 & 14th vertebrae with bullet path depicted by red plastic dowel on display at the National Museum of Military Medicine at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in DC. (An adjunct museum within the Smithsonian system)
It's worth noting that the wound was not necessarily fatal, but "old school" physicians who attended the stricken president didn't buy into the new-fangled "bacteria" theory. At least two doctors probed the wound with their unwashed and unsterile bare fingers as well as unsterile surgical tools. Neither sterile dressings nor disinfectants were employed in the president's care. Further, in attempts to ascertain the precise location of the bullet, the small caliber bullets path was enlarged by several crude fingerings. The resultant raging infection ultimately killed Garfield.
James A. Garfield was born in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, in 1831. Fatherless at two, he later drove canal boat teams, somehow earning enough money for an education. He was graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts in 1856, and he returned to the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (later Hiram College) in Ohio as a classics professor. Within a year he was made its president.
Garfield was elected to the Ohio Senate in 1859 as a Republican. During the secession crisis, he advocated coercing the seceding states back into the Union.
In 1862, when Union military victories had been few, he successfully led a brigade at Middle Creek, Kentucky, against Confederate troops. At 31, Garfield became a brigadier general, two years later a major general of volunteers.
http://img297.echo.cx/img297/1276/4a40410r8ro.jpg
Garfield as Civil War brigadier general
Meanwhile, in 1862, Ohioans elected him to Congress. President Lincoln persuaded him to resign his commission: It was easier to find major generals than to obtain effective Republicans for Congress. Garfield repeatedly won re-election for 18 years, and became the leading Republican in the House.
In the election of 1880, the Republican ticket looked like it would boil down to a fight between former president Ulysses S. Grant and the more moderate James G. Blaine. Garfield surprised everyone, however, by earning more and more votes in the convention balloting.
Garfileld won the presidential nomination, and eventually the election, against Democrat Winfield S. Hancock, a Civil War hero. The election was the closest on record. Garfield won by the narrowest of margins, and only with the help of the New York political boss Roscoe Conkling, with whom Garfield had agreed to consult on party appointments. Had New York or Indiana gone donkey, Garfield would have lost the presidency.
http://img297.echo.cx/img297/8510/election18809ek.gif
1880 election results. It was a squeaker! Garfield vs Hancock. Hancock Dems in teal blue, Garfield GOP in green
Since Garfield was struck down four months into his term, historians can only speculate as to what his presidency might have been like. Garfield did have time to appoint his cabinet, however, and in doing so, he refused to cave in to party politics, enraging Senator Conkling, who resigned in protest. Had Garfield served his term, historians speculate that he would have been determined to move toward civil service reform and carry on in the clean government tradition of President Hayes.
http://img297.echo.cx/img297/9882/garfield6in.jpg
President Garfield
He was also determined to fight for the civil rights of black Southerners, as he made clear in his 1881 inaugural address. Unfortunately, he is best remembered for his assassination. And because his killer was a frustrated office-seeker, Garfield's greatest legacy was the impact of his death on moving the nation to reform government patronage. Garfield County, in NW Oklahoma is named for the assassinated president.
Now a little more about the nutty assassin:
http://img297.echo.cx/img297/6683/guiteauport7bi.jpg
Assassin Guiteau
Charles Guiteau, a deeply disturbed man, had been tracking President Garfield for a while. When Garfield was running for office, Guiteau sent him a deranged speech to read to his audience. Not surprisingly, Garfield never read the speech, but Guiteau insisted that it was instrumental in getting him elected and demanded the position of ambassador to France in return. :eek:
Since the White House did not have any real security in place at this time, Guiteau became a frequent visitor and even met the president on one occasion. He began to harass the Secretary of State every day about the French ambassadorial position. When he was summarily rejected, Guiteau decided to seek revenge by shooting the president.
He later told authorities that he followed Garfield for weeks, once sitting directly behind him at church. After checking out the prisons in Washington, D.C., to make sure the accommodations would suit him, Guiteau made his attack on the president on July 2. Despite strong indications of insanity, prosecutors tried Guiteau for murder.
Acting as his own attorney during the 10-week trial, Guiteau screamed incessantly and sometimes danced around the courtroom. But the court did not put a stop to his antics, even after he called the prosecutors "dirty liars." During his closing argument, he claimed that God had told him to kill the president. When the jury pronounced him guilty of murder, Guiteau shouted at them, "You are all low, consummate jackasses!"
Guiteau was hanged on June 30, 1882. Two hundred spectators at the jail watched as hundreds more gathered outside. From the gallows, Guiteau recited a poem in a high, childlike voice, "I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad."