Charles Julius Guiteau (September 8, 1841 – June 30, 1882) was an American lawyer with a history of mental illness who assassinated President James Garfield on July 2, 1881. (Garfield died of complications following the shooting on September 19: most modern physicians familiar with the case state Garfield would have easily survived his wounds with the medical care available even 20 years later ^[1]). Charles Guiteau This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired in the United States and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years. ... September 8 is the 251st day of the year (252nd in leap years). ... 1841 is a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... June 30 is the 181st day of the year (182nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 184 days remaining. ... 1882 (MDCCCLXXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar. ... British barrister 16th century painting of a civil law notary, by Flemish painter Quentin Massys. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Jack Ruby murdered the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, in a very public manner. ... The presidential seal was used by President Hayes in 1880 and last modified in 1959 by adding the 50th star for Hawaii. ... James Abram Garfield (November 19, 1831 – September 19, 1881) was the 20th President of the United States (1881) and the second U.S. President to be assassinated (Abraham Lincoln was the first). ... July 2 is the 183rd day of the year (184th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 182 days remaining. ... 1881 (MDCCCLXXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... September 19 is the 262nd day of the year (263rd in leap years). ...

Infamous in life and in death

Born in Freeport, Illinois, Guiteau and his family moved to Ulao, Wisconsin in 1850 where they lived until 1855, when his mother died. Soon after, Guiteau and his father moved back to Freeport.^[2] Lincoln-Douglas debates monument, near downtown Freeport. ...

Guiteau was routinely beaten by his father as a child and left home at an early age. He inherited $1000 from his grandfather (worth about $22,500 in year-2005 dollars) as a young man and went to Ann Arbor, Michigan, in order to attend the university there. Due to inadequate academic preparation, he failed the entrance examinations. After some time trying to do remedial work in Latin and algebra, during which time he received numerous letters from his father haranguing him to do so, he quit and joined the controversial religious sect known as the Oneida Community, in Oneida, New York. Despite the "free love" aspects of that sect, he was generally rejected during his five years there—his nickname was "Charles Gitout." He left the community twice. The first time he went to Hoboken, NJ, and attempted to start a newspaper based on Oneida religion, to be called "The Daily Theocrat." This failed and he returned to Oneida, only to leave again and file lawsuits against the community's founder, John Humphrey Noyes. Guiteau's father, embarrassed, wrote letters in support of Noyes, and Noyes maintained that he did not hold any ill-will towards Guiteau, saying "I consider him insane." For the railroad company, see Ann Arbor Railroad. ... This article is about the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. ... The Oneida Society (Oneida Community) was a utopian commune founded by John H. Noyes in 1848 near Oneida, New York. ... The term free love has been used since at least the nineteenth century to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage, especially for women. ... Hoboken may refer to: An American city — Hoboken, New Jersey A Belgian town — Hoboken, Antwerp Anthony van Hoboken, the Dutch musicologist who cataloged the works of Joseph Haydn in 1957 This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. ... John Humphrey Noyes (September 3, 1811 â€“ April 13, 1886) was a U.S. utopian. ...

Guiteau then obtained a law license in Chicago, based on an extremely casual bar exam. He used his money to start a law firm in Chicago based on ludicrously fraudulent recommendations from virtually every prominent American family of the day. He was not successful. He only argued one case in court, the bulk of his business being in bill collecting in which his annoying persistence was a useful characteristic. Most of his cases, however, resulted in enraged clients and judicial criticism. Chicago (officially named the City of Chicago) is the third largest city in the United States (after New York City and Los Angeles), with an official population of 2,896,016, as of the 2000 census. ...

He next turned to theology. He published a book on the subject called The Truth which was almost entirely plagiarized from the work of John Humphrey Noyes. After that embarrassment, Guiteau took an interest in politics. He wrote a speech in support of Ulysses S. Grant called "Grant v. Hancock", which he revised to "Garfield v. Hancock" after Garfield won the Republican nomination in the 1880 presidential campaign. Alas, he changed little more than the title, hence mixing up Garfield's achievements with those of Grant. The speech was only delivered a maximum of two times, but Guiteau believed himself to be largely responsible for Garfield's victory. He insisted he should be awarded an ambassadorship for his vital assistance, first asking for Vienna, then deciding that he would rather be posted in Paris. His personal requests to the President and to cabinet members (as one of many job seekers who lined up every day) were continually rejected; on May 14, 1881 he was finally told personally never to return by Secretary of State James Blaine. Theology (Greek θεος, theos, God, + λογος, logos, word or reason) means reasoned discourse concerning religion, spirituality and God. ... Plagiarism refers to the use of anothers ideas, information, language, or writing, when done without proper acknowledgment of the original source. ... Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant, April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was the 18th President of the United States (1869–1877). ... For other uses, see Ambassador (disambiguation). ... James G. Blaine James Gillespie Blaine (January 31, 1830–January 27, 1893) was a U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator from Maine and a two-time United States Secretary of State. ...

He then decided that God had commanded him to kill the ungrateful President. Guiteau borrowed fifteen dollars and went out to purchase a revolver. He knew little about firearms, but did know that he would need a large caliber gun. He had to choose between a .44 Webley British Bulldog revolver with a wooden handle and one with a silver handle. He chose the one with the silver inlay because he wanted it to look good as a museum exhibit after the assassination, and, as he explained at his trial, he thought it was worth the extra dollar. (The revolver has been lost). He spent the next few weeks in target practice—the kick from the revolver almost knocked him over the first time—and in stalking the President. The Colt Single Action Army, one of the most popular revolvers of all time For other uses, see Revolver (disambiguation). ... Webley is the name of a famous handgun manufacturer from Birmingham in the United Kingdom History In the 19th Century Birmingham was the centre of British firearm manufacture. ...

On one occasion, he trailed Garfield to the railway station as he was seeing his wife off to a beach resort in New Jersey, but decided to do it later, as Mrs. Garfield was in poor health and he didn't want to upset her. On July 2, 1881 he lay in wait for the President at the Baltimore and Potomac Railway station, getting his shoes shined, pacing, and engaging a cab to take him to the jail later. As President Garfield entered the station, looking forward to a vacation with his wife in Long Branch, New Jersey, Guiteau stepped forward and shot Garfield twice from behind, the second shot piercing the first lumbar vertebra but missing the spinal cord. Guiteau fired "with the exulting words, repeated everywhere: 'I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts... Arthur is President now.'" (New York Herald, July 3, 1881). Garfield died on September 19, eleven weeks after being shot, after a long, painful battle with infections brought on by his doctors poking and probing the wound with unwashed hands and unsterilized instruments. Map of Long Branch in Monmouth County Long Branch is a City located in Monmouth County, New Jersey. ... Categories: Anatomy stubs | Anatomy ... Cross-section through cervical spinal cord. ... In the United States during the Gilded Age, patronage - the appointing of government jobs to supporters - became a central issue, due to bipartisan agreement on national issues and political decadence. ...

Guiteau became something of a media darling during his trial for his bizarre behavior, including constantly badmouthing his defense team, formatting his testimony in epic poems which he recited at length, and soliciting legal advice from random spectators in the audience via passed notes. He dictated an autobiography to the New York Herald, ending it with a personal ad for a nice Christian lady under thirty. He was blissfully oblivious to the American public's outrage and hatred of him, even after he was almost assassinated twice himself. At one point, he argued that Garfield was killed not by himself but by medical malpractice ("The doctors killed Garfield, I just shot him"), which was more than a little true. Throughout the trial and up until his execution, Guiteau was housed at St. Elizabeths Hospital in the southeastern quadrant of Washington, DC. St. ... Aerial photo (looking NW) of the Washington Monument and the White House in Washington, DC. Washington, D.C., officially the District of Columbia (also known as D.C.; Washington; the Nations Capital; the District; and, historically, the Federal City) is the capital city and administrative district of the United...

To the end, Guiteau was actively making plans to start a lecture tour after his perceived imminent release and to run for President himself in 1884, while at the same time continuing to delight in the media circus surrounding his trial. He was dismayed when the jury was unconvinced of his divine inspiration, convicting him of the murder. He was found guilty on January 23, 1882. He appealed, but his appeal was rejected, and he was hanged on June 30, 1882 in the District of Columbia. On the scaffold, Guiteau recited a poem he had written called "I am Going to the Lordy". He had originally requested an orchestra to play as he sung his poem, but this request was denied. January 23 is the 23rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1882 (MDCCCLXXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar. ... Suicide by hanging. ... June 30 is the 181st day of the year (182nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 184 days remaining. ... 1882 (MDCCCLXXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar. ... Aerial photo (looking NW) of the Washington Monument and the White House in Washington, DC. Washington, D.C., officially the District of Columbia (also known as D.C.; Washington; the Nations Capital; the District; and, historically, the Federal City) is the capital city and administrative district of the United...

Guiteau's trial was one of the first high profile cases in the United States where the insanity defense was considered. Guiteau vehemently insisted that while he had been legally insane at the time of the shooting, he was not really medically insane, which was one of the major causes of the rift between him and his defense lawyers and probably also a reason the jury assumed Guiteau was merely trying to deny responsibility. In a criminal trial, the insanity defenses are possible defenses by excuse, via which defendants may argue that they should not be held criminally liable for breaking the law, as they were mentally ill at the time of their allegedly criminal actions. ...

Miscellaneous

• In the musical play Assassins by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman, Guiteau (referred to as Charlie) is portrayed as a comical buffoon who sings a cakewalk as he ascends the scaffold to be executed. Some of the lyrics to the Ballad of Guiteau were written by Guiteau himself: they are the words to his "Going to the Lordy" poem mentioned above. Sondheim fleshed out Guiteau's own song and added music to it, an idea that Guiteau himself had suggested, when reciting the poem, that the lyrics "if set to music [...] would be rendered very effective."

• The life of Charles Guiteau has many parallels to that of Garfield, the examination of which forms the primary narrative device of Rick Geary's comic book The Fatal Bullet: a true account of the assassination, lingering pain, death, and burial of James A. Garfield, twentieth president of the United States; also including the inglorious life and career of the despised assassin Guiteau (1999, Nantier, Beall, Minoustchine), a volume in his series A Treasury of Victorian Murder.

• The assassination of James Garfield is the topic of the song "Mister Garfield (Has Been Shot Down)" written by J. Elliot, recorded by Johnny Cash in 1965 and released by Columbia Records; re-recorded for the 1972 album "America - A 200 Year Salute in Story And Song". The assassination is also featured in the song "Charles Giteau" by Kelly Harrell & the Virginia String Band as included in the Anthology of American Folk Music.

• Guiteau's method of assassination was prominently featured in Warren Adler's mystery novel American Quartet.

Musical theater (or theatre) is a form of theatre combining music, songs, dance, and spoken dialogue. ... Assassins is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by John Weidman and was based on an idea by Charles Gilbert, Jr. ... Stephen Joshua Sondheim (born March 22, 1930) is an American musical theater lyricist and composer. ... John Weidman is an American librettist. ... Cakewalk is a traditional African American form of music and dance which originated among slaves in the US South. ... Rick Geary is an artist who is known primarily for his non-fiction comic book series, A Treasury of Victorian Murder. ... A comic book is a magazine or book containing the art form of comics. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... Johnny Cash (February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an influential American country music and rock music singer and songwriter and the husband of June Carter Cash. ... The Anthology of American Folk Music is a recording that collects several dozen folk and country songs which were initially recorded from the 1920s and 1930s, and were first released on 78 rpm records. ... Warren Adler (born December 16, 1927 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American businessman and novelist. ...

References

The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ...

See also

• List of assassins
• Patronage in the Gilded Age

The following is a list of assassins with short comments on the assassination(s) that made them famous. ... In the United States during the Gilded Age, patronage - the appointing of government jobs to supporters - became a central issue, due to bipartisan agreement on national issues and political decadence. ...

External links

• History House's account of Guiteau's life and the assassination of Garfield, part 1, 2 and 3.