89: The Assassination of President James Garfield (Part 1)
An Old Timey Podcast
An Old Timey Podcast
4.9 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 4 February 2026
⏱️ 75 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
James A. Garfield was a remarkable man. He was an academic. A Union war hero. A family man. And in 1880? He *accidentally* became the Republican nominee for president. In this episode, you’ll get a boatload of context about 1880s politics (omg, are you still reading?), and you’ll learn how a man oops-fudge-striped his way into the presidency.
In the weeks to come, we’ll cover his presidency, his assassination, and the legacy he left behind.
Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Kristin pulled from:
The book, “Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President,” by Candice Millard
The book, “Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield,” by Kenneth D. Ackerman
“Murder of a President” documentary and additional resources from PBS.org
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hear ye, hear ye. You are listening to an old time you podcast. I'm Kristen Caruso. |
| 0:07.9 | And I'm Norman Caruso. And on this episode, I'll be talking about the assassination of President James Garfield. Part one. |
| 0:17.0 | Oh. |
| 0:18.9 | Folks, gather round, for you shall hear from my little mouth to your ear. |
| 0:27.3 | Are you trying to make stuff around? |
| 0:29.0 | Nowhere near your rear. |
| 0:30.7 | You were about to hear one of the most fascinating tales in American history, says me. |
| 0:35.4 | You know, Netflix just put out a series about this, right? |
| 0:39.0 | Yeah, it's fantastic. |
| 0:40.8 | Death by Lightning, check it out. |
| 0:42.6 | But don't you dare stop listening to this. |
| 0:45.6 | First you listen to this, then you go check out Death by Lightning, okay? |
| 0:48.9 | If you want the real story, you'll listen to us. |
| 0:52.8 | Well, actually, Death by Lightning is is really good it does do a good job |
| 0:56.4 | Nick Offerman as as Chester Arthur was fantastic a lot of amazing actors okay we can't play favorites |
| 1:04.1 | but the guy who plays charles gutot is obviously the best so sorry everybody that's just the |
| 1:09.4 | truth although the guy who plays |
| 1:10.9 | James Garfin. You know what? Michael Shannon. We can't play favorites. Um, Norm, I, I hear that |
| 1:18.6 | you're a little pumped, a little vindicated, and you're ready to talk about it. Yep. I guess we |
| 1:24.7 | should, uh, go ahead and get this over with, huh? |
| 1:28.5 | Get it over with. Yeah, I have an announcement to you and to everybody listening. |
| 1:33.5 | Guess who's back? Back again. |
... |
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