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Garfield was scheduled to leave Washington on July 2, 1881 for his summer vacation, beginning with a visit to his Alma Mater, Williams College where he was scheduled to speak. Guiteau waited for the President at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad station, on the southwest corner of present day Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. Garfield arrived, accompanied by two of his sons, James and Harry, and Secretary of State Blaine. Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln waited at the station to see the President off. Garfield had no bodyguard or security detail. As President Garfield entered the waiting room of the station Guiteau stepped forward and pulled the trigger from behind at point-blank range. "My God, what is that?" Garfield cried out, flinging up his arms. Guiteau fired again and Garfield collapsed. One bullet grazed Garfield's shoulder and the other hit him in the back, passing the first lumbar vertebra but missing the spinal cord before coming to rest behind his pancreas.
Guiteau put his pistol back in his pocket and turned to leave the station for the cab he had waiting outside, but he was apprehended before he could leave by policeman Patrick Kearney, who was so excited at having arrested the man who shot the president that he neglected to take Guiteau's gun from him until after their arrival at the police station. A rapidly gathering crowd screamed "Lynch him!" Kearney took Guiteau to the police station a few blocks away. Following the assassination, Guiteau exclaimed: "I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts! I did it and I want to be arrested! Arthur is President now!" This statement briefly led to unfounded suspicions that Arthur or his supporters had put Guiteau up to the crime, but as more was learned about Guiteau, the conspiracy theory lost all credibility.
The James A. Garfield National Historic Site is located in Mentor, Ohio and it preserves the former president's home. In 1936, Garfield's children donated the house and all of its contents to the Western Reserve Historical Society for use as a museum. Later, on December 28, 1980, the United States Congress authorized the Garfield home as a National Historic Site. The site was operated by the National Park Service with the Western Reserve Historical Society until January 2008, at which time the WRHS transferred the land, buildings, and operation of the site to the National Park Service. The site contains hundreds of specimens of antique Victorian furniture, over 80% of which was owned by the Garfield family themselves in the 1880s. Many other were acquired or recreated by the National Park Service to supplement the collection. Ten wallpapers were also reproduced from either photographs or samples found under the layers of wallpaper that had accumulated over the years.
Website: http://www.nps.gov/jaga/index.htm
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