Details
[GARFIELD, JAMES A.]. GUITEAU, CHARLES J., Assassin of President Garfield. Autograph letter signed ("Charles Guiteau"), with initialled postscript, to Mr. Connery(?), Managing Editor of the [New York] Herald; Washington, D.C., 24 September 1881. 2 pages, 8vo, written lengthwise on a half-sheet of lined quarto stationery.
FIVE DAYS AFTER GARFIELD'S DEATH, HIS ASSASSIN ASSERTS: "GARFIELD WAS A GOOD MAN, BUT A WEAK POLITICIAN, AND I WISH ALL HONOR PAID TO HIS REMAINS"
"Friday you published a column & a half of matter taken I presume from Mr. Bailey's(?) manuscript. I am glad you did not publish the entire manuscript as I wish to modify it to fit the fact of the President's departure. Please express Mr. Bailey's(?) manuscript to me at once. If it is not all written out send what he wrote & also his short hand book. Also my revised edition of The Truth which I shall publish under the title of my theology. Send the bundle, by Express, direct to Gen. Crocker, Warden U.S. Jail Washington D.C. without my name on it, & he will hand it to me. I think of giving the book to the American News Co. They can push it better than any co. in N.Y. Please say in the Herald for me, that Gen. Garfield was a good man, but a weak politican, and I wish all honor paid to his remains... [Postscript:] "This was written in a cramped position in my cell which is not so light as the one I occupied before I was shot at. Please attend to this at once as I want to get my book out...."
Guiteau, a mentally unstable lawyer and earlier supporter of Garfield who had been rebuffed in his hopes of an office after the 1880 election, shot Garfield in the back on 2 July 1881. The President died of blood poisoning on September 19. At his trial, which lasted from November 1881 to January 1882, Guiteau pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but the jury declared him guilty and he was hanged in June.
FIVE DAYS AFTER GARFIELD'S DEATH, HIS ASSASSIN ASSERTS: "GARFIELD WAS A GOOD MAN, BUT A WEAK POLITICIAN, AND I WISH ALL HONOR PAID TO HIS REMAINS"
"Friday you published a column & a half of matter taken I presume from Mr. Bailey's(?) manuscript. I am glad you did not publish the entire manuscript as I wish to modify it to fit the fact of the President's departure. Please express Mr. Bailey's(?) manuscript to me at once. If it is not all written out send what he wrote & also his short hand book. Also my revised edition of The Truth which I shall publish under the title of my theology. Send the bundle, by Express, direct to Gen. Crocker, Warden U.S. Jail Washington D.C. without my name on it, & he will hand it to me. I think of giving the book to the American News Co. They can push it better than any co. in N.Y. Please say in the Herald for me, that Gen. Garfield was a good man, but a weak politican, and I wish all honor paid to his remains... [Postscript:] "This was written in a cramped position in my cell which is not so light as the one I occupied before I was shot at. Please attend to this at once as I want to get my book out...."
Guiteau, a mentally unstable lawyer and earlier supporter of Garfield who had been rebuffed in his hopes of an office after the 1880 election, shot Garfield in the back on 2 July 1881. The President died of blood poisoning on September 19. At his trial, which lasted from November 1881 to January 1882, Guiteau pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but the jury declared him guilty and he was hanged in June.