Scatter Brained

JAMES GARFIELD—JULY 2, 1881
What You Already Know:
 Somebody killed James Garfi eld.
What You Might Not:
 Th
  e assassin was Charles J. Guiteau, 
and besides being a bad person, he was an awful poet. Just 
before he was executed, Guiteau recited a hymn he’d writ-
ten on the scaff old with the memorable (and perhaps exces-
sively optimistic) title “I Am Going to the Lordy, I Am So 
Glad.”
Also:
 Telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell tried to 
fi nd  the  bullet  in  Garfi eld with a metal detector, but failed 
due to the box springs in Garfi eld’s bed.
Furthermore:
 Guiteau didn’t 
really
 kill Garfi eld;  Garfi eld’s 
doctors did. For days, they probed the wound in his gut with 
* “Th
  us always to tyrants.”

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unclean instruments in search of the bullet; then they cut 
him open further to search for the bullet. Th
 e resulting infec-
tions and sepsis really caused Garfi eld’s death. In fact, the 
bullet had lodged in a protective cyst, and, had they left the 
thing alone, he likely would have survived.