Garfield's Assassination

Topic: Garfield's assassination

James A. Garfield, who had assumed the U.S. presidency earlier that year, succumbed to an assassin’s bullet on this date in 1881.
No doubt exists about the death date of our twentieth president, but pinning down the precise date of Garfield’s assassination can give one pause. That’s because Garfield had been shot on July second, but he didn’t die for another two and a half months. So do historians date Garfield’s assassination to the day he died, or to the day his assassin attempted to kill him?

The answer isn’t apparent in the definition of assassinate. Assassinate has two meanings: it can mean “to injure or destroy unexpectedly and treacherously”; and it can also mean “to murder a usually prominent person by sudden or secret attack, often for political reasons.”

Of course, murder can be protracted, and our research shows historians tend to spell out the details of Garfield’s assassination. We came across plenty of descriptions along the lines of “the president was assassinated on July second but survived until September.”

Our research also shows this unusual historical aside: Garfield was the victim not only of an assassin but also of unsanitary medical practices and an unsuccessful attempt to locate the bullet with a metal detector rigged up by Alexander Graham Bell.


http://www.m-w.com/wftw/091905.ram