The President's doctors did what they thought was right. The problem is, what they did was wrong.

Without using sterilization (which was a new concept in 1881), attending physicians probed the President's wound with unwashed fingers and unsterilized medical devices. A massive infection developed. After 2½ months, Garfield died on September 19, 1881.

Guiteau could now be tried for murder. His lawyers had great difficulty defending him. Their only realistic defense was insanity, but Guiteau insisted he would be part of the defense team. His wild theories help us understand why he never made it as a lawyer. He even wrote a letter to the trial judge explaining that it was the doctors' actions that had caused Garfield's death, not his.

Guiteau enjoyed his status as a celebrity defendant. He signed all kinds of autographs. He even sent his jailer a card on New Year's Eve, 1881. Thinking he had done the will of God, Guiteau never believed he would be convicted of a crime. He misjudged that, as he had misjudged so many other things.

Even though the insanity defense could have helped Guiteau's lawyers prove that the assassin did not realize his actions were wrong, the jury was outraged. They agreed with a pre-trial press statement made by George Corkhill, one of the prosecutors, on the health of Guiteau's mind:

"...he was a deadbeat, pure and simple...Finally he got tired of the monotony of deadbeating."

The jury reached a guilty verdict on January 26, 1882. Four days later Guiteau went to the scaffold, proclaiming he only did what the Almighty had told him to do.

It is very likely that Guiteau was insane. But, he was actually right about one thing. If the doctors had left the President alone, Garfield would probably have survived the shooting. The bullet had lodged in a protective cyst, about four inches from Garfield's spine. A man can live with such an injury.

View Garfield pictures from "Prints Old & Rare".

A biography of President Garfield.

A biography of Charles Guiteau.

More on Guiteaus' trial.