Garfield, 107.
37 “Despite the announcements”: Quoted in ibid., 98.
38 “may live the day out”: Peskin, Garfield, 606.
39 “Do you think my name”: Ibid., 607.
40 Rockwell was again with Garfield: Ibid.
41 “Well, Swaim”; Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 95.
42 “wonderful productions”: Bliss, “The Story of President Garfield’s Illness,” 304.
43 Moments later, Lucretia: Ibid.
44 “hear the long, solemn roll”: Stanley-Brown, “My Friend Garfield,” 101.
45 “the witnesses of the last sad scene”: Bliss, “The Story of President Garfield’s Illness,” 304.
46 “A faint, fluttering pulsation”: Ibid.
47 “All hearts,” Bliss would write, “were stilled”: Ibid.
48 “begged her to retire”: Ibid., 305.
Chapter 22: All the Angels of the Universe
1 “Extra Republican!”: Bell to Mabel Bell, September 19, 1881, Bell Family Papers. Bell began this letter to Mabel earlier in the evening of the 19th. As he was writing, it turned midnight, and soon after he heard the newsboy’s cry, announcing Garfield’s death.
2 “Please hunt in the study”: Ibid.
3 “How terrible it all is”: Ibid.
4 “the final agony”: Stanley-Brown, “My Friend Garfield,” 101.
5 In the end, the autopsy: “The Result of the Autopsy,” New York Times, September 21, 1881.
6 “The missile”: Bliss et al., “Record of the Post-mortem Examination of the Body of President J. A. Garfield,” 4.
7 “this long descending channel”: Ibid.
8 “no evidence that it had been penetrated”: Ibid., 3.
9 Evidence of the proximate cause: Ibid.; Author interview with Dr. David Lounsbury, June 29, 2010.
10 “The initial point of this septic condition”: Reyburn, Clinical History of the Case of President James Abram Garfield, 97.
11 “irregular form”: Bliss et al., “Record of the Post-mortem Examination of the Body of President J. A. Garfield,” 5.
12 This, they realized: “Official Bulletin of the Autopsy,” 1.
13 “slipped entirely through”: Stanley-Brown, “My Friend Garfield,” 101.
14 “I daren’t ask him”: Reeves, Gentleman Boss, 247.
15 “All the noble aspirations”: Ibid., 244.
16 “the people and the politicians”: Ibid., 245.
17 “And so Garfield is really dead”: Julia Sand to Chester Arthur, September 28, 1881, Chester Arthur Papers.
18 Garfield’s body, which was returned: Ridpath, The Life and Work of James A. Garfield, 657.
19 “The whole city was draped in mourning”: Mollie Garfield diary, September 29, 1881, quoted in Feis, Molly Garfield in the White House, 101.
20 “in many respects”: “Looking Upon the Dead,” New York Times, September 23, 1881.
21 Only one man had no place: Rosenberg, The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, 48.
22 More than a week earlier: United States v. Guiteau, 599.
23 “a great big musket-bullet”: After hitting the wall, the bullet was said to have been flattened into a nearly perfect likeness of Guiteau’s profile. An enterprising man, R. A. Whitehand, made molds from the bullet and sold facsimiles, whose authenticity was certified by John Crocker, the warden of the District Jail, and by Guiteau himself.
24 Although he would later: There was an outcry against Mason’s sentence, and a fund was established for his defense.
25 He was tired, he said: Clark, The Murder of James A. Garfield, 107.
26 “There is an American judge”: Rosenberg, The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, 50–52.
27 “Mama says he ought”: Quoted in Feis, Molly Garfield in the White House, 95.
28 “For this man Guiteau”: “Gen. Sherman’s Timely Counsel,” New York Times, September 19, 1881.
29 “All a man would need”: Rosenberg, The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, 98.
30 The legal standard for determining insanity: There is considerable disagreement about the spelling of M’Naghten’s name. Richard Moran, who wrote what is likely the definitive book on the case—Knowing Right from Wrong—devotes several pages to a discussion of this controversy. His conclusion is that the correct spelling is “McNaughtan,” and he makes a very compelling argument. However, the most common spelling is M’Naghten.
31 “gradual failure of heart’s action”: Moran, Knowing Right from Wrong, 186.
32 “We have seen the trials”: Quoted in ibid., 21.
33 “at the time of the committing”: Ibid., 22–24.
34 In America, it became known: Clark, The Murder of James A. Garfield, 118.
35 In 1859, Congressman Daniel Edgar Sickles: Mitchell, “The Man Who Murdered Garfield,” 470.
36 “I plead not guilty to the indictment”: Clark, The Murder of James A. Garfield, 116.
37 “Guiteau should have a fair trial”: “Guiteau’s Trial,” New York Times, November 14, 1881.
38 “If I didn’t think the unfortunate man was insane”: Clark, The Murder of James A. Garfield, 117.
39 “I think he ought to be hung”: Rosenberg, The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, 114.
40 It took three days: Ibid., 116.
41 “for the first time in anyone’s memory”: Taylor, “Assassin on Trial,” 3.
42 The courtroom itself had been renovated: Ibid.
43 The rest