Guiteau and the Assassination of President Garfield

The President had arrived at the rail station with his Secretary of State, James G. Blaine. Six weeks before, on meeting Guiteau at the State Department, Blaine had instructed Guiteau:

Never bother me again about the Paris consulship so long as you live.

(The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, by Charles E. Rosenberg, 1976 edition, page 39.)

As the President and his entourage passed through the station's waiting room, Guiteau approached Garfield from behind. He fired two shots. One was inconsequential, grazing the President's arm. The other, sending a bullet into Garfield's back, was serious but not necessarily fatal.

Garfield sank to the floor, allegedly falling on a floor tile which is now housed at the Smithsonian Institute. He was initially examined at the station by Dr. Smith Townsend, the first doctor to reach him.

Frail and in poor health, Lucretia ("Crete") Rudolph Garfield, the First Lady, was not with the President at the train station. Recovering from a serious bout of malaria, she was at a resort in New Jersey. She quickly returned to the White House.

Garfield's wound was initially 3.5 inches long. But as one doctor after another poked and prodded the President, looking for the bullet, Garfield's condition worsened. His pus-oozing wound eventually measured 20 inches!