At 9:30am, the morning of July 2nd, 1881, President James A. Garfield was shot at Baltimore and Potomac Depot, a train station in Washington, D.C. (Salt Lake Daily Harold, 1881). In the ladies room of the train car, two shots were fired at President Garfield, with one bullet penetrating his right arm and the other piercing his abdomen just above the right hip, near his kidney (Salt Lake Daily Harold,...
James A. Garfield was by definition an opportunist, he used even his failures in life to present a heroic image and thus propel himself into political office. Such was the case when he beseeched his commanding officer after their position had been overrun and he desired to be where the Union was winning the battle (and thus seen as victorious), “Let me go to the front… It is dangerous, but the...