James A. Garfield
Born: November 19, 1831
Died: September 19, 1881
Term in Office:
March 1881-September 1881
Before we get into this gentleman's tragic end, here are a couple of quick bits of trivia on him: 1), he was the last 'log cabin' president (of course, Honest Abe was the best-known of fellows born in those humble abodes) and, 2), he served as a brigadier general and major general during the Civil War.
Now to the sad and ugly events regarding the end of this man's life, cut short by a bullet that struck him just four months after his inauguration, though he struggled to hang onto life for almost 12 weeks more, before succumbing to death.
The same thing that Garfield resisted during his 150 days at the desk in the Oval Office was probably responsible for the shooting. Garfield was opposed to political appointments via the patronage system, or payback for favors that awarded posts based on who one knew (or for financial support during campaigns), rather than on merit and who was most fit for a particular job (kind of the way things in this country have always been run... a bi-product of Capitalism?).
[side note: see the post on Chester A. Arthur, Garfield's vice-president and successor, who signed the Pendleton Act, which, in theory, put an end to the patronage system.]
On July 2, 1881, at a DC train station (in the days before presidents had security or bodyguards) a man who felt slighted by Garfield's reluctance to follow the patronage way of doing things, an office seeker named Charles Guiteau, and who had paid a personal White House visit to the President days earlier, took two shots at our man, the first grazing his shoulder, the second doing more damage, finding a home behind his pancreas.
The doctors, oblivious to the significance of germs versus cleanliness and such, stuck their grimy hands into the wound in a desperate attempt to find and remove the bullet. Over the course of the next 79 days, severe infection set in and Garfield died, probably from doctors' incompetence rather than the bullet hiding out in his body.
Sometime before the assassin Guiteau was hanged, he observed that it was the care Garfield received from his doctors that killed him. He had merely shot the man.
In our present day of debate over guns and 'red flag warnings,' it may be appropriate to note that Guiteau's family had tried to get the future assassin committed to an asylum, so erratic and potentially dangerous were his actions in the weeks leading up to the shooting.
I'd like to recognize Wikipedia's article on "The Assassination of James A. Garfield" for information contained in this little post.
Peace to all, and keep washing your hands.
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