Garfield Administration - Post-Presidential Years

Post-Presidential Years

Garfield died while he was still president. He was shot by Charles Guiteau, an unsuccessful applicant for a political patronage job, as Garfield strolled with Secretary of State Blaine across the waiting room of a train station in Washington, D.C. Garfield was on his way to visit his wife, who was ill, in Elberon, New Jersey. After being taken to the White House, the president was operated on to remove bone fragments from his wounds in his arm and his midsection. Repeated probing of the wounds by unsterilized instruments and doctors' hands led to blood poisoning. On September 6, the president requested to be taken to Elberon. There, in addition to blood poisoning, he contracted bronchopneumonia and died on September 19, 1881. Garfield lay in state in the Capital rotunda where over one hundred thousand mourners paid their respects before his burial at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.