On this day, July 2, in 1881, President James Garfield was shot at a railroad station in the District.
The shooter was Charles J. Guiteau, a lawyer who was angry because he failed to secure a federal job. Guiteau waited for Garfield at the railroad depot, on the southwest corner of Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue in Northwest, jumped from a crowd and shot the president twice with a .44-caliber revolver.
Guiteau was quickly seized by D.C. police Pvt. Patrick Kearney, who was surprised that Guiteau so readily surrendered.
The president was wounded; one bullet lodged in his spine. Doctors could not find it, and Alexander Graham Bell devised a metal detector but was unsuccessful in locating the bullet.
Garfield died 11 weeks later, making his tenure the second shortest in U.S. presidential history.
Authorities housed Guiteau at St. Elizabeths Hospital until his hanging on June 30, 1882. His bones and brain, along with Garfield’s backbone, are kept at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
– Scott McCabe
