Oh yeah, Kathryn was very busy lately. There will be another tv presence soon.
President James Garfield (Shuler Hensley)
remains gravely ill in the days after he was struck by an assassin’s
bullet. He is watched over by his wife Lucretia Garfield (Kathryn Erbe).
Credit: Courtesy of Klára Cvrčková / WGBH Educational Foundation
American Experience: Murder of a President (PBS Distribution
Based on Candice Millard’s best-seller Destiny of the Republic, Murder of a President
is the story of James A. Garfield, one of the most extraordinary men
ever elected president, his shooting by a deluded madman named Charles
Guiteau, and its bizarre and tragic aftermath. Just four months after
Garfield took office, Guiteau fired two bullets at the president in a
Washington, D.C. train station. Amazingly, Garfield survived, and for
the next 79 days, the nation held its breath while his medical team and
others – including inventor Alexander Graham Bell – struggled in vain to
keep him alive. Featuring Tony Award winner Shuler Hensley as Garfield,
Kathryn Erbe (Law & Order: Criminal Intent) as his beloved wife
Lucretia, and Will Janowitz (The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire) as the
assassin, the sweeping and dramatic story of Garfield’s life combines
science and medicine, party politics and love.
Part of the Peabody Award-winning American Experience series, The Presidents, Murder of a President premieres on Tuesday, February 2nd at 8:00 p.m. on KUED and also airs Tuesday, February 2nd, 2016 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV.
On the morning of July 2, 1881, as Garfield entered the Baltimore and
Potomac Railroad Station, Charles Guiteau shot him twice. The first
bullet sliced through the president’s right arm; the second ripped into
his back. Guiteau was immediately arrested.
Just five minutes
after the shooting, the first doctor reached the station, and within the
hour, he would be joined by nine more physicians. As Garfield fought
for his life, his medical team – led by the questionable Dr. Doctor
Bliss – administered archaic and unsanitary measures, rejecting the
method of antisepsis that had been recently discovered by the British
surgeon Joseph Lister. Garfield was transported back to the White House
and Bliss assumed control, refusing assistance or opinions from other
doctors.
As Garfield’s life hung in the balance, the nation remained riveted to
news reports, and thousands of letters of support poured in for the
ailing president. Even Alexander Graham Bell, the recent inventor of the
telephone, worked around the clock to invent the first metal detector, a
device capable of finding the bullet.
But Bliss interfered with the metal detector tests, fearing they would
reveal that the bullet was lodged in a place other than where he had
indicated. Throughout, Lucretia remained at her husband’s side,
advocating on his behalf. She brought in another doctor, Garfield’s
cousin, but he too was unable to convince Bliss to change course.
Weakened by pain and riddled with infection, Garfield remained stoic
and conscious until the end. On September 5th, he asked to be moved to
the seashore in Elberon, New Jersey, where train track was laid directly
to the door of his borrowed summer home. With Lucretia and his family
by his side, Garfield died on September 19, 1881.
“The 1880s represent a crucial moment in American history. Garfield’s
presidency promised to lead the nation into a new and brighter
direction. He grew up in terrible poverty and rose to the Presidency on
the sheer force of his personality and intellect and truly believed all
Americans should have the same opportunity to succeed,” says American Experience Executive Producer Mark Samels.
“Garfield had come to represent that vision for which the Union had
fought,” says historian Heather Cox Richardson. “Garfield believed that
everybody should have equality of opportunity and that the government
should help them get that. With the assassination of Garfield, that
dream, the dream for which the Union had fought, that vision died.”
trailer
WGBH American Experience . Murder of a President: TV’s most-watched history series airs on PBS and has a library of over
250 documentaries.
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