Charles Julius Guiteau ( ; September 8, 1841June 30, 1882) was an American office seeker and murderer who assassinated the 20th president of the United States, James A. Garfield, in 1881. A failed lawyer suffering from mental illness, Guiteau delusionally believed 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 shot Garfield in Washington, D.C., on July 2, 1881. Garfield died on September 19 from infections related to the wounds. Caught immediately after shooting Garfield, Guiteau was tried, convicted, and publicly executed by hanging on June 30, 1882.
Early life and education Guiteau was born in Freeport, Illinois, the fourth of six children of Jane August () and Luther Wilson Guiteau, 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. As a child, Guiteau was slow to learn and his father was known to beat him for misspelling or mispronouncing words, or for failing to adhere to Luther Guiteau's strict religious standards.
In 1860, Guiteau inherited $1,000 () from his grandfather and planned to attend the University of Michigan, but he 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 he received numerous letters from his father that extolled the Oneida Community, the utopian religious sect in Oneida, New York, with which Guiteau's father had a close affiliation. In June 1860, Guiteau quit school and joined the Oneida Community. 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".
During the American Civil War, the Oneida Community was so remote that its male members were not required to register for the draft, so Guiteau was not conscripted, nor did he volunteer to enlist, despite being of military age. Despite the free love aspect of the Oneida Community, Guiteau was generally rejected during his time there and the women turned his name 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 The Daily Theocrat, a newspaper based on the Oneida religion. 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.
Early career Guiteau had a checkered career that resulted in negative publicity and brushes with the law; newspaper notices in 1868 warned readers that he was falsely claiming to be an advertising agent for the New-York Tribune. He later worked as a clerk at the Chicago law firm of Joseph S. Reynolds and in August 1868 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 for the publishers of a Guiteau biography how he kept disproportionate amounts from his collections and rarely gave any money to his clients.
Guiteau lost his office furniture and a law library in 1871's Great Chicago Fire. 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 Liberal Republican 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 to his wife; when she wanted a divorce in 1873, Guiteau obliged by having sex with a prostitute who then testified to his infidelity. The divorce was granted in April 1874.
In July 1874, The New York Herald accused Guiteau of fraud; engaged to collect a $350 debt, he reportedly agreed to accept $175 from the debtor, which he kept. When the client objected, Guiteau argued that attorneys usually kept fifty percent of what they collected, and the $175 he had obtained represented his fifty percent of the $350 debt. News accounts of this incident caused Guiteau to sue Herald publisher James Gordon Bennett Jr. for libel; after requesting $100,000, he offered to settle for $25,000, which Bennett rejected. The case ended in October 1876 when trial judge George C. Barrett required Guiteau to post a bond to guarantee court costs, which Guiteau was unable to do.
Turning to authorship, Guiteau published a book on religion called The Truth, which was almost entirely plagiarized from the work of Noyes. In early 1875, Guiteau attempted to establish a law practice in Toulon, Illinois, but he departed after about six weeks, trailed by unpaid bills and accusations of theft. By late 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. In July 1877, he was arrested for embezzlement, accused of collecting over $3,000 on accounts due for several Chicago businesses and keeping the money for himself.
After Guiteau's release from the Chicago jail, he began to wander from town to town speaking and preaching, and he was arrested again in September 1877, accused of failing to pay for his room and board while in Ann Arbor to give a lecture. Locations where Guiteau spoke included Boston and Springfield in Massachusetts, Providence in Rhode Island, and Madison and Beloit in Wisconsin. Other locations included Buffalo, New York, Jersey City, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Davenport, Iowa, and Washington, D.C. His lectures were often sparsely attended and negatively reviewed. They also generated little income; news reports after his visits frequently stated that he had absconded after failing to pay for advertising, food, and lodging.
1880 presidential campaign 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 aboard SS Stonington when it collided with 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 the loss of about 55 lives. Although neither Guiteau nor his fellow Stonington passengers were injured, the incident left Guiteau believing he had been spared for a higher purpose.
After the ship collision, Guiteau's interest turned again to politics. During the 1880 presidential campaign, the Republican Party was largely split into the Stalwart faction, led by Roscoe Conkling, who supported Grant for a non-consecutive third term, and the Half-Breeds, who supported James G. Blaine. Guiteau supported the Stalwarts and wrote a speech called "Grant against Hancock", which he quickly revised to "Garfield against Hancock" after dark horse candidate Garfield (not affiliated with either faction) won the 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.
Guiteau was a campaign hanger-on; he occasionally appeared briefly as one of several speakers at minor Republican rallies and was among those who left calling cards for Grant when Grant visited New York City in October. Garfield won a narrow victory over Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock that November. Despite his peripheral role, Guiteau believed himself to be largely responsible for Garfield's win and 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.
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 them letters pressing his claim for a consulship. Guiteau's requests to Garfield and the cabinet secretaries as one of many job seekers who lined up every day to see them in person were continually rejected, as were his numerous letters. 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!"
Assassination of Garfield
Guiteau considered himself a loyal Republican 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 Roscoe 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 for the assassination. 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. On one occasion, Guiteau trailed Garfield to the since-demolished Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station as the president was seeing his wife Lucretia off to a beach resort in Long Branch, New Jersey, but Guiteau decided to postpone his plan because she was in poor health and he did not want to upset her.