Harry Augustus Garfield Harry Augustus Garfield Harry Augustus "Hal" Garfield (October 11, 1863 – December 12, 1942) was an American lawyer, academic and public official. He was president of Williams College and supervised the Federal Fuel Administration during World War I. Garfield was the son of President James A. Garfield and First Lady Lucretia Garfield, and the brother and law partner of Secretary of the Interior James Rudolph Garfield. At the age of 17 he and his 15-year-old brother James watched in horror as their father was shot down by assassin Charles Guiteau. After graduating from Williams College in 1885, he went on
Charles J. Guiteau and distraught after his final encounter with Blaine, he decided the only solution was to remove Garfield and elevate Vice President Chester A. Arthur, an acolyte of Senator Roscoe Conkling, the Stalwart leader who managed Grant's 1880 campaign and was not on friendly terms with Garfield. Guiteau felt that God told him to kill the president; he felt that such an act would be a "removal" as opposed to an assassination. He also felt that Garfield needed to be killed to rid the Republican Party of Blaine's influence. Borrowing $15 from George Maynard, a relative by marriage, Guiteau set out