Reportedly haunted locations in the District of Columbia at night in National Statuary Hall, and one Congressional staff member claims that by standing in the spot where Adams' desk once stood a person can still hear the former president's ghostly whisper. James A. Garfield was a member of the House from 1863 to 1881 before assuming the Presidency in March 1881. Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau, a disgruntled office seeker, on July 2, 1881, at 9:30 a.m. as he walked through the Sixth Street Station of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad in Washington, D.C. Garfield died of heart failure brought about by blood poisoning (itself caused
Charles J. Guiteau to be the center of attention for once in his life. Guiteau sent a letter in which he argued that Arthur should set him free because he had just increased Arthur's salary by making him president. At one point, Guiteau argued before Judge Cox that Garfield was killed not by the bullets but by medical malpractice ("The doctors killed Garfield, I just shot him"). Throughout the trial and up until his execution, Guiteau was housed at St. Elizabeths Hospital in the southeastern quadrant of Washington, D.C. While in prison and awaiting execution, Guiteau wrote a defense of the assassination he