And if he were prosecuted today, he'd have been found not guilty by reason of mental defect. Guiteau was crazy.
I bet you miss lynchings, too!
Guiteau no longer misses them.
It was just two days shy of the one-year anniversary of Guiteau’s attack on President Garfield. Before his sentence was carried out, Guiteau was permitted to recite a poem he had written entitled “I am Going to the Lordy.” These were his final words.
I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad,
I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad,
I am going to the Lordy,
Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah!
I am going to the Lordy.
I love the Lordy with all my soul,
Glory hallelujah!
And that is the reason I am going to the Lord,
Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah!
I am going to the Lord.
I saved my party and my land,
Glory hallelujah!
But they have murdered me for it,
And that is the reason I am going to the Lordy,
Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah!
I am going to the Lordy!
I wonder what I will do when I get to the Lordy,
I guess that I will weep no more
When I get to the Lordy!
Glory hallelujah!
I wonder what I will see when I get to the Lordy,
I expect to see most glorious things,
Beyond all earthly conception
When I am with the Lordy!
Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah!
I am with the Lord.
Upon completion of his recitation, the executioner placed a hood over Guiteau’s face and the noose around his neck. Guiteau continued to hold the poem in his hand; he had arranged with the executioner beforehand to drop the paper when he was ready to die. When he did so, the trapdoor opened and the noose broke Charles Guiteau’s neck. His body was buried in the jail yard, but later disinterred and sent to the facility that eventually became the National Museum of Health and Medicine. His brain and enlarged spleen were preserved.
For most of the country, Guiteau’s death marked an end to the year-long saga of President Garfield’s assassination. For the Garfield family, though, the pain and sadness of the previous year would continue for years and decades to come.
Written by Todd Arrington, Site Manager, James A. Garfield National Historic Site, June 2017 for the
Garfield Observer.