President James Garfield was shot twice in the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station by Charles Guiteau. One of the physicians who visited him in the station, before he was transported back to the White House, was Charles Burleigh Purvis. Purvis was one of the founders of the Howard University Medical School, a historically black university.
Another attending doctor, a white man named Dr. Bliss, couldn’t locate the bullet in the President’s back. Without administering anesthesia Bliss used an unsterilized probe, then an unsterilized finger, in order to search for the bullet in Garfield’s back. Candice Miller, in her book The Destiny of the Republic, discusses the event at length. “With a boldness then extraordinary in a black doctor when addressing a white one,” she says, Purvis asked Dr. Bliss to end his brutal examination. Miller asserts that it was the infection introduced during this and future examinations which ultimately claimed the President’s life. Purvis never saw Garfield once they removed the President from the station.
Purvis would go on to be nominated by then-President Chester Arthur to be surgeon-in-charge at the Freedmens hospital, the first African-American to head a civilian hospital.
When Charles Guiteau wrote a speech in support of Grant for the 1880 presidential campaign the prevailing belief was that Ulysses S. Grant would be the Republican Party’s nominee for president. When the nomination went to James Garfield instead, Guiteau changed the name throughout his speech from Grant to Garfield and left the rest of the speech unchanged. Printed copies of the speech were handed out but never gained traction and he later became convinced this speech was the reason for Garfield’s victory.
Once Garfield took office Guiteau went to Washington to request a diplomatic position as compensation for his contribution to the victory. He lived in boarding houses with promises of future payment as soon as his position was recevied. Rejected by the government one too many times, Guiteau came to believe the best course of action would be to assassinate Garfield in order to remove him from the presidential seat and pave the way for decisions more in line with the Republican Party's beliefs.
Guiteau was able to procure a handgun and got close enough to shoot the president at the Baltimore-Potomac Railroad station. His two shots didn’t kill Garfield immediately; the president was able to cling to life for eleven weeks until he passed away from numerous infections. This was before sterile medical care was practiced and doctors would use unwashed hands to inspect wounds. In the trial Guiteau claimed that it wasn’t his bullets which killed Garfield but instead medical malpractice was to blame. Guiteau was found guilty and hung for the assasssination.
