Charles J. Guiteau

Charles Julius Guiteau (/ɡɪˈtoʊ/ ghih-TOH; September 8, 1841 – June 30, 1882) was an American man who assassinated James A. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, in 1881. A failed lawyer, Guiteau falsely believed that he had played a major role in Garfield's election victory, for which he should have been rewarded with a consulship. Guiteau felt frustrated and offended by the Garfield administration's rejections of his applications to serve in Vienna or Paris to such a degree that he decided to kill Garfield and shot him at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C. Garfield died 79 days later from infections related to the wounds. In January 1882, Guiteau was sentenced to death for the crime and was hanged five months later.
Charles J. Guiteau was born in Freeport, Illinois, the fourth of six children of Jane August (née Howe; 1814–1848) and Luther Wilson Guiteau (1810–1880), whose family was of French Huguenot ancestry. His mother died in 1848, and in 1850, Guiteau moved with his family to Ulao, Wisconsin (near current-day Grafton), where he lived until 1855. Soon after, Guiteau and his father moved back to Freeport.
In 1860, Guiteau inherited $1,000 (equivalent to $35,000 in 2024) from his grandfather and planned to attend the University of Michigan, but Guiteau failed the entrance examinations because of inadequate academic preparation. He crammed in French and algebra at Ann Arbor High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Guiteau received numerous letters from his father that extolled the Oneida Community, so he quit school before completing the program. In June 1860, Guiteau joined the Oneida Community, the utopian religious sect in Oneida, New York, with which Guiteau's father already had a close affiliation. According to Brian Resnick of The Atlantic, the younger Guiteau "worshiped" the group's founder, John Humphrey Noyes, with Guiteau once writing that he had "perfect, entire and absolute confidence in [Noyes] in all things".
Despite the free love aspect of the Oneida Community, Guiteau was generally rejected during his time there and his name was turned into a play on words to create the nickname "Charles Gitout". Guiteau left the community twice; the first time, he went to Hoboken, New Jersey, and attempted to start a newspaper based on the Oneida religion, called The Daily Theocrat. This failed and Guiteau returned to Oneida, only to leave again and file lawsuits against Noyes, in which he demanded payment for the work he had supposedly performed on behalf of the Oneida Community. Guiteau's embarrassed father wrote letters in support of Noyes, who considered Guiteau irresponsible and insane.
Guiteau worked as a clerk at a Chicago law firm and passed a cursory examination to attain admission to the bar. He was not successful as a lawyer; he argued only one case in court, and his client was convicted. In 1869, Guiteau met and married librarian Annie Bunn. The bulk of his legal business was in bill collecting; she later detailed how Guiteau kept disproportionate amounts from his collections and rarely gave any money to his clients.
In 1872, Guiteau and his wife moved to New York City, one step ahead of bill collectors and dissatisfied clients. Guiteau took an interest in politics and identified with the Democratic Party. In the 1872 presidential election, he supported Horace Greeley, the Liberal Republican and Democratic candidate, against incumbent Republican Ulysses S. Grant. Guiteau prepared a disorganized speech in support of Greeley, which he delivered once. Greeley was badly defeated, but during the campaign Guiteau became convinced that if Greeley won, he would appoint Guiteau as minister (ambassador) to Chile. Guiteau was physically abusive with his wife; when she wanted a divorce in 1874, Guiteau obliged by having sex with a prostitute who then testified to his infidelity.
Turning back to religion, Guiteau published a book on the subject called The Truth, which was almost entirely plagiarized from the work of Noyes. By 1875, Guiteau's father had become convinced that his son was possessed by Satan. Conversely, Guiteau himself became increasingly convinced that his actions were divinely inspired, and that his destiny was to "preach a new Gospel" like Paul the Apostle. He wandered from town to town preaching, and in December 1877, gave a lecture at the Congregational Church in Washington, D.C.
Guiteau spent the first half of 1880 in Boston, which he left owing money and under suspicion of theft. On June 11, 1880, Guiteau was a passenger on the SS Stonington when it collided with the SS Narragansett at night in heavy fog near the mouth of the Connecticut River. Stonington was able to return to port, but Narragansett burned to the waterline and sank with significant loss of life. Although neither Guiteau nor his fellow Stonington passengers were injured, the incident left Guiteau believing he had been spared for a higher purpose.
Guiteau's interest then turned again to politics. During the 1880 presidential campaign, the Republican Party was largely split into factions – the Stalwarts, led by Roscoe Conkling, who supported Grant for a non-consecutive third term, and the Half-Breeds, who supported James G. Blaine. Guiteau decided to support the Stalwarts and wrote a speech in support of Grant called "Grant against Hancock", which he quickly revised to "Garfield against Hancock" after dark horse candidate Garfield (not affiliated with either faction) unexpectedly won the Republican presidential nomination. Ultimately, Guiteau changed little more in the text than switching Grant's name to Garfield's. The speech was delivered at most twice, and printed copies were passed out to members of the Republican National Committee at their summer 1880 meeting in New York, but Guiteau believed himself to be largely responsible for Garfield's victory over Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock that November. He insisted that he should be awarded a consulship for his supposedly vital assistance, first asking for Vienna, then deciding that he would rather have the one in Paris. Guiteau's personal requests to Garfield and his cabinet as one of many job seekers who lined up every day to see them in person were continually rejected, as were his numerous letters.
By the early days of Garfield's administration, which commenced in March 1881, Guiteau was living in Washington, D.C., destitute and forced to sneak between rooming houses without paying for his lodging and meals, and to walk around the cold, snowy city in a threadbare suit, without a coat, hat or boots. Guiteau spent his days in hotel lobbies reading discarded newspapers to keep track of the schedules of Garfield and his cabinet and making use of the hotels' complimentary stationery to write letters to them pressing his claim for a consulship. In the spring, Guiteau was still in Washington, and on May 14, 1881, he once more encountered Blaine, now Secretary of State, and inquired about a consular appointment; an exasperated Blaine finally snapped, "Never speak to me again on the Paris consulship as long as you live!"
Guiteau considered himself a loyal Republican and a Stalwart and convinced himself that his work for the party had been critical to Garfield's election to the presidency. Later convinced that Garfield was going to destroy the Republican Party by abolishing the patronage system, and distraught after his final encounter with Blaine, Guiteau decided the only solution was to remove Garfield and elevate Vice President Chester A. Arthur, an acolyte of Senator Conkling, the Stalwart leader who managed Grant's 1880 campaign and who was not on friendly terms with Garfield.
Guiteau conceded that the president would be too strong to kill with a knife, stating, "Garfield would have crushed the life out of me with a single blow of his fist!" He settled on a gun after contemplating what weapon he would use. Guiteau felt that God told him to kill the president; he felt that such an act would be a "removal" as opposed to an assassination. He also felt that Garfield needed to be killed to rid the Republican Party of Blaine's influence. Borrowing $15 from George Maynard, a relative by marriage, Guiteau set out to purchase a revolver. He knew little about firearms, but Guiteau believed that he would need a large-caliber gun. While shopping at O'Meara's store in Washington, he had to choose between a .442 Webley caliber British Bulldog revolver with wood grips or one with ivory grips. Guiteau preferred the one with the ivory handle because he thought it would look better as a museum exhibit after the assassination. Though Guiteau could not afford the extra dollar for the ivory grips, the store owner dropped the price for him. Guiteau spent the next few weeks in target practice – the recoil from the revolver almost knocked him over the first time he fired it. Guiteau's weapon was recovered after the assassination and given to the Smithsonian, but it has since been lost.
On one occasion, Guiteau trailed Garfield to the since-demolished Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station as the president was seeing his wife off to a beach resort in Long Branch, New Jersey, but Guiteau decided to postpone his plan because Garfield's wife Lucretia was in poor health and Guiteau did not want to upset her. Having been alerted to the president's schedule by a newspaper article, on July 2, 1881, he lay in wait for Garfield at the railroad station, getting his shoes shined, pacing, and engaging a cab to take him to the station later. As Garfield entered the station, looking forward to a vacation with his wife in Long Branch, Guiteau stepped forward and shot Garfield twice from behind, the second shot piercing the first lumbar vertebra but missing the spinal cord. As he surrendered to authorities, Guiteau said: "I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts. ... Arthur is president now!"
After a long, painful battle with infections, possibly brought on by his doctors' poking and probing of the wound with unwashed hands and non-sterilized instruments, Garfield died on September 19, 11 weeks after being shot. Modern physicians familiar with the case state that Garfield would have easily recovered from his wounds with sterile medical care, which was not common in the United States until a decade later, while Candice Millard argues that Garfield would have survived Guiteau's bullet wound had his doctors simply left him alone. Rutkow, a professor of surgery at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, has argued that starvation also played a role. Rutkow suggests, "Garfield had such a nonlethal wound. In today's world, he would have gone home in a matter of two or three days."
The conventional narrative regarding Garfield's post-shooting medical condition was also challenged by Theodore Pappas and Shahrzad Joharifard in a 2013 article in The American Journal of Surgery. They argued that Garfield died from a late rupture of a splenic artery pseudoaneurysm, which developed secondary to the path of the bullet adjacent to the splenic artery. They also argued that his sepsis was actually caused by post-traumatic acute acalculous cholecystitis. Based on the autopsy report, the authors speculate that his gallbladder subsequently ruptured, leading to the development of a large bile-containing abscess adjacent to the gallbladder. Pappas and Joharifard suggest this caused the septic decline in Garfield's condition that was visible starting from July 23, 1881.
Once Garfield died, the government officially charged Guiteau with murder. He was formally indicted on October 14, 1881, on the charge of murder, which previously had been attempted murder after his arrest. Guiteau pleaded not guilty to the charge. The trial began in Washington, D.C., on November 17 in the Supreme Court for the District of Columbia (now the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia). The presiding judge in the case was Walter Smith Cox. Although Guiteau would insist on trying to represent himself during the entire trial, the court appointed Leigh Robinson to defend him. In less than a week of trial, Robinson retired from the case. George Scoville then became lead counsel for the defense. While Scoville's legal experience lay in land title examination, he had married Guiteau's sister and was thus obliged to defend him in court when no one else would. Wayne MacVeagh, the U.S. Attorney General, served as the chief prosecutor. MacVeagh named five lawyers to the prosecution team: George Corkhill, Walter Davidge, retired judge John K. Porter, Elihu Root, and E. B. Smith.
Guiteau's trial was one of the first high-profile cases in the United States where a defense based on a claim of temporary insanity was considered. Guiteau vehemently insisted that while he had been legally insane at the time of the shooting (claiming God had taken away his free will) he was not really medically insane, which was one of the major causes of the rift between Guiteau and his defense lawyers. The judge gave the jury instructions based on the M'Naghten test.
The defense hired Edward Charles Spitzka, a leading alienist, a now-archaic term for a psychiatrist, as an expert witness in support of an insanity defense. Spitzka had stated that it was clear "Guiteau is not only now insane, but that he was never anything else." While on the stand, Spitzka testified that he had "no doubt" that Guiteau was both insane and "a moral monstrosity". He came to the conclusion that Guiteau had "the insane manner" he had so often observed in asylums, adding that Guiteau was a "morbid egotist" with "a tendency to misinterpret the real affairs of life". He thought the condition to be the result of "a congenital malformation of the brain".
Corkhill, who was the District of Columbia's district attorney and on the prosecuting team, summed up the prosecution's opinion of Guiteau's insanity defense in a pre-trial press statement that also mirrored public opinion on the issue:
Guiteau became something of a media sensation during his entire trial for his bizarre behavior, which included him frequently cursing and insulting the judge, most of the witnesses, the prosecution, and even his defense team, as well as formatting his testimony in epic poems which he recited at length, and soliciting legal advice from random spectators in the audience via passed notes. He dictated an autobiography to the New York Herald, ending it with a personal ad for "a nice Christian lady under 30 years of age". He was oblivious to the American public's hatred of him, even after he was almost assassinated twice himself. He frequently smiled and waved at spectators and reporters in and out of the courtroom.
Guiteau sent a letter in which he argued that Arthur should set him free because he had just increased Arthur's salary by making him president. At one point, Guiteau argued before Cox that Garfield was killed not by the bullets but by medical malpractice; "The doctors killed Garfield, I just shot him." Throughout the trial and up until his execution, Guiteau was housed at St. Elizabeths Hospital in the southeastern quadrant of Washington, D.C. While in prison and awaiting execution, Guiteau wrote a defense of the assassination he had committed and an account of his own trial, which was published as The Truth, and the Removal.
To the end, Guiteau was making plans to start a lecture tour after his perceived imminent release and to run for president himself in 1884, while at the same time continuing to delight in the media circus surrounding his trial. He was found guilty on January 25, 1882, and sentenced to death. After the guilty verdict was read, Guiteau stepped forward, despite his lawyers' efforts to tell him to be quiet, and yelled at the jury, saying, "You are all low, consummate jackasses!", plus a further stream of curses and obscenities before he was taken away by guards to his cell to await execution. Guiteau appealed his conviction, but the appeal was rejected.
Twenty-nine days before his execution, Guiteau composed a lengthy poem asserting that God had commanded him to kill Garfield to prevent Blaine's "scheming" to war with Chile and Peru. Guiteau also claimed in the poem that now-President Arthur knew the assassination had saved the United States, and that Arthur's refusal to pardon him was the "basest ingratitude". He also (incorrectly) presumed that Arthur would pressure the Supreme Court into hearing his court appeal.
Guiteau was hanged on June 30, 1882, in the District of Columbia, just two days before the first anniversary of the shooting. Guiteau survived his victim by nine months and eleven days, a longer period than any other presidential assassin.
While being led to his execution, Guiteau was said to have continued to smile and wave at spectators and reporters. He notoriously danced his way to the gallows and shook hands with his executioner. On the scaffold, Guiteau delivered a "last dying prayer" in which he declared that God "did inspire the act for which I am now murdered" and predicted that "This government and this nation, by this act, will incur Thy eternal enmity," adding that "Thy divine law of retribution will strike this nation and my murderers." Guiteau also excoriated President Arthur as "a coward and an ingrate whose ingratitude to the man that made him and saved his party and land from overthrow has no parallel in history." Then, as a last request, Guiteau recited a poem "that I wrote this morning about 10 o'clock" called "I Am Going to the Lordy", which he had written during his incarceration. Guiteau had originally requested an orchestra to play as he sang his poem, but this request was denied.
As per request with the executioner, Guiteau signaled that he was ready to die by dropping the paper. After he finished reading his poem, a black hood was placed over the smiling Guiteau's head and moments later the gallows trapdoor was sprung, the rope breaking his neck instantly with the fall. Guiteau's body was not returned to his family, as they were unable to afford a private funeral, but was instead autopsied and buried in a corner of the jail yard.
With tiny pieces of the hanging rope already being sold as souvenirs to a fascinated public, rumors immediately began to swirl that jail guards planned to dig up Guiteau's corpse to meet demands of this burgeoning new market. Fearing scandal, the decision was made to disinter the corpse. The body was sent to the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Maryland, which preserved Guiteau's brain as well as his enlarged spleen discovered at autopsy and bleached the skeleton. These were placed in storage by the museum. Parts of Guiteau's brain remain on display in a jar at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia.
In 1881, psychiatrist Allan McLane Hamilton testified that he believed that Guiteau was sane when he assassinated Garfield. Upon his autopsy, it was discovered that Guiteau had the condition known as phimosis, an inability to retract the foreskin, which at the time was thought to have caused the insanity that led him to assassinate Garfield. An autopsy of his brain revealed that his dura mater was abnormally thick, suggesting he may have had neurosyphillis, a disease which causes mental instability; Guiteau could have contracted syphilis from a prostitute. George Paulson, formerly the chair of neurology at the Ohio State University, disputed the neurosyphillis diagnosis, arguing that Guiteau had both schizophrenia and "grandiose narcissism".
In 2014, the criminal psychologist Kent Kiehl said that Guiteau was a psychopath, giving him a score of 37.5 out of 40 on the PCL-R scale.
The life of Guiteau, focusing on his psychological disturbances and his plan to kill Garfield, is the subject of "Portrait of an Assassin", a radio play by James Agate Jr. The play was produced as Episode 1125 of CBS Radio Mystery Theater and was first broadcast on October 8, 1980, where he was played by John Lithgow.
Guiteau is depicted in Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's musical Assassins, wherein he mentors Sara Jane Moore, a woman who attempted to assassinate Gerald Ford. Guiteau sings parts of "I am Going to the Lordy" in the musical's song "The Ballad of Guiteau".
In the American Dad! episode "Garfield and Friends", Hayley Smith uses Guiteau's DNA to revive him and uses him like a bloodhound to track down a revived Garfield.
In the alternate history short story "I Shall Have a Flight to Glory" by Michael P. Kube-McDowell in the 1992 anthology Alternate Presidents edited by Mike Resnick, Guiteau and Garfield are allies against Samuel J. Tilden, who has become a tyrannical president.
Actor Will Janowitz plays Guiteau in the 2016 PBS documentary American Experience: Murder of a President. Guiteau is portrayed by Matthew Macfadyen in the 2025 Netflix miniseries Death by Lightning.
The Ramblin' Jack Elliott song "The Death of Mister Garfield" recounts the assassination and the reactions of a fictional witness. Johnny Cash learned the song from Elliott, and later recorded a re-worked version as "Mr. Garfield".