The greatest tragedy of James Garfield’s life was that the man was meant for greatness, but he wasn’t destined to achieve it. With a single speech and a young man’s faith, he changed the entire course of the 1880 US presidential elections. Through his words, he first gained the confidence of the members of the Republican Party and then jumped into the elections to take the country by storm. People had high hopes for him. Everyone considered James Garfield to be a hero, even though he hadn’t passed any bills or made any reforms; still, his countrymen believed in his vision. Alas, just three months into his presidency, he was shot down and killed. He died before he could show the world what he was really capable of. And that is how the world remembers him, “the US president with the second shortest stint in the Oval Office.” Death by Lightning’s ending discussed how a man obsessed with his own greatness destroyed the life of another individual. From a very young age, James Garfield’s assassin, Charles J. Guiteau, wanted to prove his mettle to the world, but he had neither any talent nor any vision that would make him shine among his peers. Charles tried but failed, but he kept trying until his demons got the better of him. In the end, Charles went down that dark lane and decided to shoot the President of the United States to make a name for himself. That was how he wanted to be remembered. A man who chose the lesser evil to save his country and his compatriots from the greater evil. But the irony was, there was no evil in the man he shot; the real rot had always been inside his own brain. His own damned soul. So, with that said, allow me to dive deeper into the ending of Death by Lightning to see what eventually killed President James Garfield.
Spoiler Alert
Charles Lost It All
Throughout the show, Charles had been trying to find one friend or mentor who could guide him towards the path of greatness, but what everyone failed to make him understand was that there was no set course to achievement, and a man always has to find his own path. Each one of us has their own journey to follow, and things that worked for some might not work for everyone else. But Charles’ impatient mind wasn’t up for such philosophy. He was fixated on the destination rather than the journey, and all his life had been looking for the easy way to rise up the ladder. But it’s completely understandable considering Charles never had an easy childhood. I know that doesn’t give you an excuse to become a monster, but it was the late 1800s, and mental health and PTSD weren’t taken as seriously as they are today.
James Garfield had opened the doors of the Oval Office to any countryman seeking help from his president, but as soon as he assumed office, one political battle after another kept him occupied. He even met Charles once and tried his best to understand his concerns, but like everyone else, he wasn’t able to help him. The thing is, what Charles needed wasn’t a job or money. He needed psychiatric help, but other than his sister, Franny, no one understood the things he was going through. Charles and Garfield’s meeting ended abruptly when Garfield’s wife, Lucretia, fell ill, and I am sure that Charles might have felt that the president was abandoning his responsibilities like all corrupt men.
The funny thing is, Charles Guiteau picked a fight that was not even his to begin with. Garfield wanted to get rid of the bad actors within the party and therefore took away the ports from the corrupt senator Roscoe Conkling, leaving him handicapped. Conkling attacked Garfield through the press, and Charles, who had a habit of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, ended up reading what he said in the newspaper. He started to believe that Garfield was indeed the enemy of the state, as Conkling believed. And being an honorable citizen, it was his duty to take action against Garfield and his reign. Also, Vice President Chester Arthur, in a drunken state, had shown him some sympathy and exchanged a few words with him, making the poor Charles believe that he was his “very close” friend. When Arthur spoke ill of Garfield in the newspaper, Charles made himself believe that his friend needed his help and quickly purchased an “ivory revolver” to do the unspeakable with.
Garfield Was Killed By Pride and Ignorance Of His People
It’s ironic that the dream Garfield actually fought for shot him in the back. And the monsters he wanted to remove from the society confirmed the kill. According to Netflix’s Death by Lightning, the shots Charles had fired at the president hadn’t hit any of his organs. Instead, the bullet was tucked neatly behind the pancreas, and the wound would have healed itself if the chief physician, Doctor Willard Bliss, wasn’t bent on finding the lodged bullet. A doctor named Charles Purvis had told Bliss that his equipment wasn’t properly sanitized for the probe and might cause infection in the wound, but a self-proclaimed expert like Bliss refused to listen to a Black man because he had already judged his education and his talent by the color of his skin. This was the evil Garfield wanted to fight against, to grant equal rights to all people, but he died before he could cure his country. In his pride and ignorance, Bliss not only refused to take advice from Charles Purvis but also didn’t even consider the possibility that his unsanitized medical equipment was doing more damage to the wound than the bullet. In the end, Garfield died of septic poisoning. Yes, he had that 1 percent chance to survive the bullet, but Bliss stole it from him. Yes, Garfield could have been one of the greatest presidents the US ever had, but Charles Guiteau took that away from him and from the country. History doesn’t remember James Garfield, because one man’s greed for greatness eclipsed another man’s passion to make the world a better place. A man who had always stolen from his own family, robbing a family of the only treasure they had in their lives.
Lucretia Saw the Monster One Last Time
In Death by Lightning’s ending, shortly after, Lucretia visited Charles in prison. As far as my cursory research tells me, this seems to be a fictional scene, as in real life, Charles’ trial and execution were yet another circus he was part of. He tried his best to deny responsibility for the president’s assassination by any means possible, but in the end, he was hanged till death. If you remember, it was on the day James Garfield was announced president when Charles met the First Lady, Lucretia for the first time. He had broken into the building, to join the celebration as he believed he had hugely contributed to Garfield’s success. During this encounter, his hands were bleeding, and he had left some of his blood on Lucretia’s handkerchief, which is an interesting foreshadowing as he became the same person who spilled her family’s blood later in the show.
Nevertheless, when Lucretia met Charles for the second time in prison, she didn’t remember him, much like everybody else. But by now, she had understood what he desired. He wanted to become famous not by merit, but by evil. And therefore, Lucretia told him that she would make sure that the world wouldn’t remember him. In real life, Lucretia spent her days making sure her husband’s name and his legacy weren’t lost to the world. Lucretia worked closely with historian Theodore Clarke Smith to organize the papers and the books left by her husband. She even wrote a few records on her husband’s presidency and kept everything in the newly built library on their property in Ohio, which eventually came to be known as the first presidential library. Speaking of Charles, he did narrate his autobiography to the New York Herald, but what eventually happened to his book, I don’t know. But do let me know if you know anything about it.
Conkling Was Destroyed By His Own Designs
Shortly after Conkling lost control of the New York Customs House, he rose in revolt against the new president and resigned from his elected office to stir a scandal, but things didn’t turn out the way he had planned. As per Netflix’s show, Conkling was having an affair with Governor William Sprague’s wife, Kate Chase. Everyone knew about their relationship except for Conkling’s wife, Julia Seymour, who lived in Albany with their daughter. Back in New York, Kate asked Conkling to make things official between them, but the man refused, because leaving his wife would mean losing his office and his reputation among his voters. Hence, Conkling refused to marry Kate, and therefore the woman sought revenge on Conkling and told his wife the truth about their affair. Conkling was in Albany preparing for a re-election, but as soon as the scandal came out, his party members turned against him, and Conkling eventually lost his seat.
However, Conkling didn’t give up that easily. After Garfield was shot, Conkling came up with a plan to re-enter politics using his closest ally, Arthur, who was about to become the president if Garfield died. But Arthur wasn’t as ambitious as Conkling. He didn’t see himself fit for the role of the president and therefore had decided to step down, which created a rift between him and Conkling. Arthur understood that Conkling just used people and cast them aside when his purpose was served. He had thrown Thomas C. Platt under the bus because he was caught red-handed while exploring his fantasies at Delavan House. In a way, Conkling had been fooling around the same, but no one dared say it to his face until his own wife accused him of adultery. Nevertheless, from the whole Tom Platt incident, Arthur learned a crucial lesson: “There’s no such thing as friends in politics,” and therefore cut all ties with Conkling after he became president. I believe it was Secretary of State James Blaine who helped Arthur handle the affairs of his office and showed him the path that Garfield had envisioned for the party. In the end, Conkling disappeared from politics, never to enter the race again, while Arthur served his term and retired. He had passed the historic civil service reforms during his presidency. But he never reconsidered running for office again due to his health. He died a year after his retirement. It turned out, he did make his late wife proud by being of service to his country and its people.
Speaking of James Blaine, Netflix’s show portrayed him as a pioneer advisor rather than a leader. Maybe that was the reason why he never bagged a landmark win of his own. After Arthur’s retirement, James ran for presidency in 1884 but lost the election, breaking a 24-year party streak started by Lincoln.
Lucretia Leads the Family
Survived by her husband, Lucretia looked after the family and raised her children on their Ohio property. After Garfield’s death, the family went on to live the peaceful and undisturbed life on the farmland, just the way Lucretia and James had always dreamt of. In the opening sequence of the show, you might have heard their daughter, Mollie, complaining of the picnic table. Well, at the end of the show, we saw the family feasting at the very same table that their late father had built from scratch. The family had even left a chair empty, suggesting they still believed that he was with them in one way or another. This Icarus might have flown too close to the sun, but he left his children his wings, his ideas, and his vision so that they could learn from his journey and make him proud in the afterlife.
