Charles Burleigh Purvis very successful at Howard, and was credited with keeping the medical department running during the financial panic of 1873. He attended President Garfield after he was shot by an assassin on July 2, 1881. This made him the first black physician to attend to a sitting president. Later in 1881 he was appointed by President Chester Arthur to Surgeon-in-Charge at the Freedmen's hospital. Purvis was surgeon-in-charge at the Freedmen's Hospital from October 1, 1881, to 1894, and in that role was the first black person to head a hospital under civilian authority. In a letter from 1908, Purvis stated he
Charles J. Guiteau stream of curses and obscenities before he was taken away by guards to his cell to await execution. Guiteau appealed his conviction, but his appeal was rejected. 29 days before his execution, Guiteau composed a lengthy poem asserting that God had commanded him to kill Garfield in order to prevent Secretary James G. Blaine's "scheming" to war with Chile and Peru. Guiteau also claimed in the poem that Chester A. Arthur knew the assassination had saved the United States and that Arthur's refusal to pardon him was the "basest ingratitude". Guiteau also (incorrectly) presumed that President Arthur would pressure the