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
John Sherman the special session of Congress had adjourned, Sherman returned home to Mansfield. He spoke on behalf of Ohio Governor Charles Foster's effort for a second term and went to Kenyon College with ex-President Hayes, where he received an honorary degree. Sherman looked forward to staying with his wife at home for an extended period for the first time in years, when news arrived that Garfield had been shot in Washington. The assassin, Charles J. Guiteau, was a deranged office-seeker who believed that Garfield's successor would appoint him to a patronage job. After lingering for several months, Garfield died, and Arthur