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Dennis Donovan

(18,770 posts)
Thu Sep 19, 2019, 09:12 AM Sep 2019

138 Years Ago Today; President James A Garfield succumbs to wounds after assasination attempt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_James_A._Garfield


President Garfield with James G. Blaine after being shot by Charles J. Guiteau

The assassination of James A. Garfield, the 20th President of the United States, began when he was shot at 9:30 am on July 2, 1881, less than four months into his term as President, and ended in his death 79 days later on September 19, 1881. He was shot by Charles J. Guiteau at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C., and died in Elberon, New Jersey. Guiteau's motive was revenge against Garfield for an imagined political debt.

<snip>

Shooting
Garfield was scheduled to leave Washington on July 2, 1881 for his summer vacation, which was reported in the Washington newspapers, and Guiteau lay in wait for him at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station on the southwest corner of Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. Garfield came to the Sixth Street Station on his way to his alma mater Williams College, where he was scheduled to deliver a speech before beginning his vacation. He was accompanied by his sons James and Harry, and by Secretary of State James G. Blaine; Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln waited at the station to see him off. Garfield had no bodyguard or security detail; early Presidents did not employ them, with the exception of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.


Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station, Washington, DC where President James A. Garfield was assassinated on July 2, 1881

As Garfield entered the station's waiting room, Guiteau stepped forward and shot the president at point-blank range from behind. Garfield cried out, "My God, what is that?", flinging up his arms. Guiteau fired again, and Garfield collapsed. The first bullet grazed the President's shoulder, and the other struck him in the back, passing the first lumbar vertebra but missing the spinal cord before coming to rest behind his pancreas. Guiteau put his pistol back in his pocket and turned to leave via a cab that he had waiting for him outside the station, but he collided with policeman Patrick Kearney who was entering the station after hearing the gunfire.


Contemporaneous depiction of the Garfield assassination; Secretary of State James G. Blaine stands at right

Kearney apprehended Guiteau and was so excited at having arrested the man who had shot Garfield that he neglected to take his gun from him until after they arrived at the police station. Kearney demanded, "In God's name, what did you shoot the president for?" Guiteau did not respond. The rapidly gathering crowd screamed, "Lynch him", but Kearney and several other police officers took the assassin to the police station a few blocks away. As he surrendered to authorities, Guiteau uttered the exulting words, repeated everywhere: "I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts! I did it and I want to be arrested! Arthur is President now!" This statement briefly led to unfounded suspicions that either Arthur or his supporters had put Guiteau up to the crime.

The Stalwarts were a Republican faction loyal to Senator Roscoe Conkling; they supported Grant for a third term in 1880 and strongly opposed Blaine's Half-Breeds. Garfield was unaffiliated with either faction, but Blaine had given his support to Garfield once it became clear that Blaine could not win the presidential nomination. Chester A. Arthur, a Conkling ally, had been selected as Garfield's running mate to placate the Stalwart faction. As a self-professed Stalwart, Guiteau convinced himself that by removing Garfield, he was striking a blow to unite the two factions of the Republican Party.

Treatment and death


Notice for a prayer meeting in Ware, Massachusetts, dated September 8, 1881

Garfield was carried to an upstairs floor of the train station, conscious but in shock. One bullet remained lodged in his body, but doctors could not find it. Robert Lincoln was deeply upset; thinking back to the assassination of his father Abraham Lincoln; he said, "How many hours of sorrow I have passed in this town."

Garfield was carried back to the White House, and doctors told him that he would not survive the night; nevertheless, he remained conscious and alert. The next morning, his vital signs were good and doctors began to hope for recovery. A long vigil began, and Garfield's doctors issued regular bulletins that the American public followed closely throughout the summer of 1881. His condition fluctuated; fevers came and went, he struggled to keep down solid food, and he spent most of the summer eating only liquids.


Changing Garfield's bedclothes

Navy engineers rigged up an early version of the modern air conditioner in an effort to relieve him from the heat of a Washington summer. Fans blew air over a large box of ice and into the President's sickroom, and the device worked well enough to lower the temperature 20 degrees. Doctors continued to probe Garfield's wound with dirty, unsterilized fingers and instruments, attempting to find the bullet, and Alexander Graham Bell devised a metal detector specifically to find it. He was unsuccessful, partly because Garfield's metal bed frame made the instrument malfunction, and partly because self-appointed chief physician Doctor Willard Bliss allowed Bell to use the device only on Garfield's right side, where Bliss insisted the bullet had lodged. Bell's subsequent tests indicated that his metal detector was in good working order and that he would have found the bullet had he been allowed to use the device on Garfield's left side.

On July 29, Garfield met with his Cabinet for the only time during his illness; the members were under strict instruction from the doctors not to discuss anything upsetting. Garfield became increasingly ill over a period of several weeks due to infection, which caused his heart to weaken. He remained bedridden in the White House with fevers and extreme pains. His weight dropped from 210 pounds (95 kilograms) to 130 pounds (58 kilograms) as his inability to keep down and digest food took its toll. Nutrient enemas were given in an attempt to extend his life because he could not digest food. Sepsis and infection set in, and the president suffered from hallucinations for a time. Pus-filled abscesses spread all over his body as the infections raged.


Doctors discuss Garfield's wounds


Path of the Bullet that wounded President Garfield

Garfield's condition weakened and exacerbated under the oppressive summer weather in Washington. On September 6, Garfield was taken by train to the Jersey Shore to escape the Washington heat and humidity, in the vain hope that the fresh air and quiet might aid his recovery. He was propped up in bed before a window with a view of the beach and ocean. New infections set in, as well as spasms of angina. He died of a ruptured splenic artery aneurysm, following sepsis and bronchial pneumonia at 10:35 pm on Monday, September 19, 1881 in Elberon, New Jersey, two months before his 50th birthday. During the 79 days between his shooting and death, Garfield's only official act was to sign a request for the extradition of a forger who had escaped and was apprehended after he fled to Canada.


Mourners pass Garfield's body. Front L–R, Secretary of State James G. Blaine, President Chester A. Arthur, former Vice President Schuyler Colfax, former President Ulysses S. Grant, and 1880 Democratic presidential nominee Winfield Scott Hancock


President Garfield's casket lying in state at the Capitol Rotunda

Most historians and medical experts now believe that Garfield probably would have survived his wound had the doctors been more capable. However, most American doctors of the day did not believe in anti-sepsis measures or the need for cleanliness to prevent infection. Several inserted their unsterilized fingers into the wound to probe for the bullet, and one doctor punctured Garfield's liver in doing so. Also, Bliss had supplanted Garfield's physician Jedediah Hyde Baxter. Bliss and the other doctors who attended Garfield had guessed wrong about the path of the bullet in his body; they had probed rightward into his back instead of leftward, missing the location of the bullet but creating a new channel which filled with pus. The autopsy discovered this error and revealed pneumonia in both lungs and a body that was filled with pus due to uncontrolled sepsis.

Chester Arthur was at his home in New York City when word came the night of September 19 that Garfield had died. He said, "I hope—my God, I do hope it is a mistake", but confirmation by telegram came soon after. Arthur was inaugurated early in the morning on September 20, and he took the presidential oath of office from John R. Brady, a New York Supreme Court judge. Arthur then left for Long Branch to pay his respects to Mrs. Garfield before going on to Washington.

Garfield's body was taken to Washington, where it lay in state for two days in the Capitol Rotunda before being taken to Cleveland, Ohio, where the funeral was held on September 26.

</snip>


5 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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138 Years Ago Today; President James A Garfield succumbs to wounds after assasination attempt (Original Post) Dennis Donovan Sep 2019 OP
Garfield would have been a great President Clash City Rocker Sep 2019 #1
Incompetent doctors and their unwashed hands... Aristus Sep 2019 #2
Yes. Garfield clearly had two killers, one used a bullet, Hortensis Sep 2019 #5
State-of-the-art medicine dalton99a Sep 2019 #3
Johnny Cash - "Mister Garfield" ok_cpu Sep 2019 #4

Clash City Rocker

(3,378 posts)
1. Garfield would have been a great President
Thu Sep 19, 2019, 09:33 AM
Sep 2019

H was liberal for his time period, well respected and a gifted speaker. One has to wonder how America would be different had he lived.

Aristus

(66,081 posts)
2. Incompetent doctors and their unwashed hands...
Thu Sep 19, 2019, 09:38 AM
Sep 2019


The concept of infection was well-known, and the rudiments of microbiology were beginning to be understood. But even in those relatively primitive times, they should have known to wash their hands before probing around for the bullet.

Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
5. Yes. Garfield clearly had two killers, one used a bullet,
Thu Sep 19, 2019, 10:08 AM
Sep 2019

the other, apparently the doctor in charge, Willard Bliss, used arrogant refusal to adopt new aseptic techniques that were already accepted by and in common use by good practitioners. 1881. Shocking that the president of the United States was given such extremely poor care.

But look at Ronnie Jackson, part of the WH medical corps for years and then Obama's and Trump's presidential physician (!!). It was lying about Trump's health caused the scrutiny that revealed his poor character, administrative incompetence, and even medical negligence, including drinking on the job and improperly prescribing medications, and just giving them out without prescriptions. In our era.

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