Stalwarts (politics) and thereby ensure their support for the general election. After the Republican victory in November 1880, President Garfield and Conkling fought bitterly and publicly over patronage in Conkling's home state of New York. Garfield, with assistance and advice from Blaine, won the battle, and Conkling and Platt resigned from the Senate, convinced that they would be easily re-elected by the New York legislature. However, Garfield was shot by a self-proclaimed "Stalwart of the Stalwarts", Charles J. Guiteau, on July 2, 1881, and Arthur became President of the United States upon Garfield's death on September 19, 1881. The shock of the
Charles J. Guiteau the work of Noyes. He wandered from town to town lecturing to any and all who would listen to his religious ramblings, and in December 1877 gave a lecture at the Congregational Church in Washington, D.C. Guiteau spent the first half of 1880 in Boston, which he left owing money and under suspicion of theft. On June 11, 1880, he was a passenger on the SS "Stonington" when it collided with the SS "Narragansett" at night in heavy fog. The "Stonington" was able to return to port, but the "Narragansett" burned to the waterline and sank, with significant loss of