Mr. Garfield, been shot down, shot down, shot down, Mr. Garfield, been shot down, low.

Lord, I knew the breast vent was supposed to be at the people.

That's Johnny Cash singing about the assassination in the 1881 of James A. Garfield.

He was shot in a train station just 100 days after taking office.

I'm Lilian Cunningham and this is the 20th episode of Presidential.

With this episode about Garfield, I spoke on the phone with Candace Mallard.

She's a journalist and biographer who wrote a totally riveting book called Destiny of the Republic.

In it she chronicles the dark story of Garfield's murder and botched medical treatment,

but also explores some of the brightest, most overlooked aspects of his life story.

So Candace, he wrote an entire book about James Garfield and his assassination

and presumably spent several years of your life doing the research and the rating.

What drew you to his story and what made it not just interesting to you,

but made you feel that it was worthwhile and important to tell?

Well, I think most Americans, unfortunately, I didn't know anything about James Garfield

except for the fact that he had been assassinated.

I was actually researching Alexander Graham Bell and I stumbled on the story of Bell

inventing this induction balance, which is basically a metal detector connected to a telephone receiver

to try to find the bullet in Garfield after Garfield was shot.

I was really surprised for a couple of reasons first because I had never heard the story before.

Alexander Graham Bell, one of our most famous, most accomplished inventors

and one of our United States presidents.

And I started wondering, Bell was really young.

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