A sense of having been wronged, together with a warped idea of political duty, brought Charles Julius Guiteau to the Baltimore and Potomac Station in Washington on July 2, 1881. On that same Saturday morning, President James Abram Garfield strode into the station to catch the 9:30 A.M. limited express, which was to take him to the commencement ceremonies of his alma mater, Williams College--and from there, Garfield planned to head off on a much-awaited vacation. He never made the 9:30. Within seconds of entering the station, Garfield was felled by two of Guiteau's bullets, the opening act in what would be a drama that included rising and then falling hopes for the President's recovery, the most celebrated insanity trial of the century and, finally, civil service reform that backers hoped might discourage future disappointed patronage seekers from taking revengeful actions.
Charles Guiteau
Charles Guiteau's unhappy childhood began in Freeport, Illinois in September 1841. His mother, who suffered from psychosis, died shortly after Charles's seventh birthday. He was raised, for the most part, by his older sister, "Franky"--with some help from his stepmother following the remarriage of his father when Charles was twelve. He had speech difficulties and probably also suffered from what today would be called "attention deficit disorder." His brother recalled his father offering Charles a dime if he could keep his hands and feet still for five minutes; Charles was unable to collect on the offer.
Despite the personal obstacles Guiteau faced, he is described by Charles Rosenberg, author of The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, as becoming "a moral and enterprising young man." At age 18, he would tell his sister in a letter that his goal was to work hard and educate himself "physically, intellectually, and morally." During a lonely year in college in Ann Arbor, Guiteau took comfort in the theological writings of John Noyes, founder of the utopian Oneida Community in upstate New York which practiced what Noyes called "Bible Communism." Charles left Ann Arbor in 1860 and headed east to Oneida.
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