On July 2, 1881, at Washington D.C.’s Potomac Railroad Station, President James A. Garfield was shot twice. He was less than four months into his presidency. Garfield arrived at the station a few minutes early for his 9:30 a.m. train to New York. He was on his way to give a speech at his alma mater, Williams College, before starting his summer vacation. His itinerary was widely publicized in the newspapers, and several Cabinet members and two of his sons came to see him off.

Charles J. Guiteau ambushed Garfield minutes after he arrived. He shot the President point-blank in the back with a .442 Webley caliber British Bulldog revolver. A nearby police officer arrested him immediately. Guiteau was politically motivated, but he constantly changed his reasoning. Initially, Guiteau felt that an unused speech he wrote was the sole reason Garfield won the election and that he was owed a consulship in Vienna or Paris for his services.

Garfield survived the initial wounds and was even in high spirits the next few days. He returned to the White House on bed rest. Unfortunately, his physicians only recovered one of the bullets, missing the second resting near his spleen. His health quickly declined as doctors with underdeveloped medical knowledge and poor sanitation probed his wounds. President James Garfield died from sepsis on September 19, 1881.

Guiteau’s erratic and performative behavior kept him in the media spotlight. His was the first high-profile trial with an attempted insanity defense. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death on January 25, 1882. Dancing to the gallows and reciting his own poem as his last words. On June 30, 1882, Guiteau was hanged, two days before the first anniversary of the shooting.