September 19, 2011

President Garfield

On this day in 1881, President James Garfield died from a gun shot wound inflicted by an assassin 80 days earlier. Garfield had been in office less than four months. On July 2, the day he was shot, President Garfield was about to leave Washington to attend the 25th reunion of his class at Williams College. As he stood in the railroad station, a stranger stepped out of the crowd and fired two pistol shots at him. One bullet grazed the President's arm, but the other lodged in his back.

President Garfield lay near death for 80 days while a team of doctors poked and prodded him and tried to find the bullet. One report says he finally succumbed to massive infection caused by unsanitary conditions. Autopsy reports at the time said that pressure from his internal wound had created an aneurism, which was the likely cause of death.  Garfield's spine, which shows the hole created by the bullet, is kept as a historical artifact by the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C.

Today I'm creating revisions to multiple pieces for Bayou City Art Festival. But this morning, I was thumbing through a small book I have about U.S. presidents, which is the source for today's history lesson.