Ambushed! The Assassination Plot against President Garfield

This history follows James Garfield from his childhood in an Ohio log home to the U.S. presidency, alongside Charles Guiteau’s plan to shoot him. It covers the shooting and the eighty days that followed, including conflicting medical treatment, the effect on Garfield’s wife and children, political consequences, and press coverage. Later chapters address Guiteau’s trial and execution, the family’s life after Garfield’s death, the growing acceptance of germ theory in medicine, and calls for stronger presidential protection.