The tragic murder of forgotten US President James Garfield

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McCosky’s crucial task was to scrutinize Millard’s detailed dive into the history of the assassination and build an engaging story for television viewers. The Fate of the Republic includes sections on factions in the Republican Party, the antiseptics favored by British surgeon Joseph Lister and Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the early metal detector, which was eventually used to search for the bullet in Garfield’s body. Makowski chose to focus on the contrasting journeys of Guiteau and Garfield. “Both men cared very much about being known,” he said. “One pushes himself to the highest office in the land, while the other aspires to greatness and never achieves it.”

Deadly motive

Alternately Guiteau failed as a lawyer, journalist, and evangelical preacher. He even failed in the free-love society he joined; No woman would sleep with him, Millard recounts. However, he always believed that God had a great purpose for him. Guiteau became obsessed with Garfield after the unexpected nomination for congressman, and he traveled to New York in the summer of 1880, intending to play a decisive role in ensuring his victory in the general election. Guiteau harassed staff at Garfield’s campaign office in New York until he was allowed to make a single rambling speech endorsing the candidate.

Garfield vocally opposed the spoils system of distributing lucrative positions to supporters, but Guiteau was a firm believer in it. He predicted that in exchange for his support, Garfield, the current president, would give him a key position. The ambassador to France was his first choice. The deceived man traveled to Washington, and appeared at the White House every day with hordes of Egyptian job seekers. Guiteau even once came face to face with his hero, in the president’s office, where he handed Garfield a copy of his campaign speech, with the words “Consul of Paris” written on it, and a line connecting those words to his name.

At the same time, Garfield embarked on an ambitious agenda for his presidency, including modernizing the U.S. Navy, aiming to expand trade with Latin America, and defending civil rights. He appointed formerly enslaved social reformer Frederick Douglass as Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia, the first African American to hold a prominent federal office. Meanwhile, Garfield also had to contend with Roscoe Conkling, the Republican Senator from New York, and arguably the most powerful politician in the country, thanks to his indirect control of the lucrative customs revenues flowing into New York Harbor. Conkling neither liked Garfield’s progressive instincts nor his opposition to the spoils system. Candidate Garfield had already tapped his running mate, Chester Arthur, to be his running mate. Conkling now sought to block Garfield’s Cabinet picks.