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 R. Brady shot by an assassin, Charles Guiteau. Arthur, then Vice President, became President. Arthur was at home around midnight on the night of September 19, 1881 with Police Commissioner Stephen B. French, District Attorney Daniel G. Rollins, and attorney Elihu Root, when he learned in a telegram from members of Garfield's cabinet that Garfield had died. The cabinet members wired Arthur their advice that he should "take the oath of office as president of the United States without delay." It was after midnight when Arthur and his guests dispatched messengers to locate a judge who could administer the presidential oath. The