Ambushed!: Chapters 4–7

The day after the November election, Charles Julius Guiteau was ecstatic when he read about the Republican victory in the newspapers.

Frances and her husband took him in for a while, until his maternal grandfather died and bequeathed Charles enough money to pay for college.

Floundering and directionless, Charles turned to religion.

In 1860, when he was not yet nineteen, his devout father urged him to join a religious commune in Oneida, New York, run by a man his father admired.

He refused, however, to do the menial jobs required of members to sustain the community.

Others in the Oneida commune regarded him as moody, swinging from spirited to sullen within minutes.

The group charged that Charles was conceited and vain, having an opinion of himself that exceeded reality.

Out of money, Charles borrowed from his father and his sister and futilely tried to sue the Oneida Community for money he said they owed him.

Having a law license didn't get him much business, however. He was incompetent and incoherent when arguing a case in court.

Business associates, friends, and family eventually abandoned Guiteau when they discovered he had swindled them. On a few occasions, his scams got him arrested and jailed for a short period.

Local newspapers panned his lecture as rambling nonsense, and he couldn't attract audiences.

Guiteau blamed others and gave elaborate explanations for his failure.

Finally, the Republican Party relented and allowed Guiteau to give his speech, only once, to a group of Black voters in New York City.

Long before Garfield and his family boarded the train from Mentor to Washington a few days earlier, he had toiled over naming his cabinet members.

After retiring to his hotel that evening, Garfield finally had the chance to polish his inaugural speech.

As a former educator, Garfield decried the nation's high rate of illiteracy, particularly in the South, revealed by questions in the 1880 census asking if a person could read and write.

Recognizing the public's disdain for the spoils system, he called for a law regulating civil service jobs within the government.

The chief justice of the Supreme Court stepped forward to administer the oath of office. And James Abram Garfield became the twentieth president of the United States, a sprawling country of 50 million people.

The parade of job seekers had started even before he took office. A month after the election, he wrote in his diary, “Almost every one who comes to me wants something which he thinks I can and ought to give him.” The onslaught was worse once he moved into the White House.

After one exasperating day, Garfield said to his personal secretary, Joseph Stanley Brown, “These people are merciless; they demand blood, flesh, and brains.”

How could Guiteau possibly imagine he was qualified to be consul-general in Paris? As the United States representative to the French capital, the consul-general was an important position only given to men well known "for intelligence and public service.”

To James Garfield, dealing with the endless stream of office seekers and politicians was exhausting and monotonous.

He considered himself a Stalwart, and he knew they liked him. James Blaine, who had just rebuffed him, was a long-time Stalwart opponent.

The more he thought about it, the more “it kept growing upon me, pressing me, goading me."

As much as he wanted to tackle the country's problems, he found himself coping daily with bickering in his cabinet, skirmishes with Congress, and endless political appointments.

Stagnant water and swampy spots provided the ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes, which spread malaria among the capital's residents during mild weather.

The medical community believed the illness was caused by foul air, called miasma, rising from wet areas.

Over the next month, her fever rose and subsided several times.

His clothing was worn out, with fraying sleeves and collar.

He looked thin and haggard.

Unlike European monarchs and dictators, an unpopular U.S. leader could be removed by the voters at the ballot box, making assassination unnecessary. In the public’s view, Lincoln's killing had been a rare event, perpetrated by Confederates enraged about the South's defeat in the Civil War and fearful of Lincoln's actions in the aftermath.

Sitting in the wooden pew during the service, Garfield couldn’t help thinking that he was being subjected to "a very stupid sermon.” He was oblivious to the danger in the church.

Charles Guiteau was close by, intently observing the president from the back of the room.

Gazing inside, he gauged the best aim so that he would hit the back of the president's head without injuring anyone else.

He suggested to Garfield that his wife would have a speedier recovery in the cool sea breezes of New Jersey away from the stifling heat and humidity of Washington.

His itinerary included taking the train to New York the following morning, July 2.

From there, the family had arranged to visit Williams College in Massachusetts for Garfield's class reunion and to initiate the enrollment of Hal and Jim in fall classes.

Engrossed in conversation, they never saw the man lurking on the other side of the street in front of the hotel.

He would soon see Lucretia, and his vacation meant a break from the tedious business of politics and office seekers.

The president was alive but had symptoms of shock. His face was ashen, his pulse was faint, and he had vomited and then fainted.