President Garfield’s Killer and the America He Left Behind: The Assassin, the Crime, the Hapless Doctors, and a President’s Slow, Grim Death

President James Garfield was walking through a train station when a gunman shot him in the back. A mad scene erupted as Garfield bled on the floor and a crowd surrounded the shooter. Who was this strange man and why had he shot the new president? The answers to those questions became clear as Garfield lay wounded, fighting for life while misguided doctors did more harm than good. In a drama that stretched for weeks, the United States saw a second president die from an assassin’s bullet. And although it lasted only months, the presidency of James Garfield changed his country in ways few people today grasp.