Clay

Clay On July 2, 1881, two shots were fired into the back of President Garfield as he walked through the waiting room of the Baltimore and Potomac depot in Washington. The president lingered for seventy-nine days, succumbing finally on September 29. The assassin, a megalomaniac politician named Charles Julius Guiteau, had been disappointed at not getting the consulship he expected as the reward for a speech written during Garfield's campaign. GuOn July 2, 1881, two shots were fired into the back of President Garfield as he walked through the waiting room of the Baltimore and Potomac depot in Washington. The president lingered for seventy-nine days, succumbing finally on September 29. The assassin, a megalomaniac politician named Charles Julius Guiteau, had been disappointed at not getting the consulship he expected as the reward for a speech written during Garfield's campaign. Guiteau pleaded insanity at his noisily sensational trial, but was found guilty and hanged in the early afternoon of June 20, 1882. The ugly revelations of political jobbery made during Guiteau's trial are credited by the historian Charles Beard with having prompted the creation of the Civil Service Commission. Guiteau's goodnight is based on a New York broadside, "The Lamentation of James Rodgers," guiteau, goodnight, charles, trial, rodgers, president, name, during, broadside, been, ballad, york, wrote, written, writers, write, williams, washington, walked, waiting, versions, verses, unfamiliar, ugly, two, tradition, through, though, survives, suggested, succumbing, speech, south, shots, sheet, seventy-nine, service, september, sensational, room, reward, revelations, religiose, prompted, prison, potomac, popular, politician, political, pleaded, piece