Julia Sand she once asked Arthur for permission to paint him in watercolors. Julia Sand wrote her first letter when she was thirty-one. Dated August 27, 1881, it reached Arthur when he was still U.S. Vice President. Arthur's predecessor, President James A. Garfield, had been shot by Charles Guiteau; it took nearly two months for Garfield to die, during which time Vice-President Arthur was in seclusion. Upon being caught, Guiteau had announced his hope that Arthur would be president and there was a brief investigation into whether Guiteau had been hired by Garfield's enemies. Though this was disproven, there were threats to
Joe Howard Jr. York Sun", he became a political writer for the "New York Herald" and received national attention for his accurate predictions during the Blaine campaign in 1880. He officially retired from journalism that same year but continued to send editorials and letters from time to time, popularly known as "Howard's Column", which appeared in newspapers throughout the Northeastern United States including the "New York Press", the "New York Recorder" and the "Boston Globe". Among the social and political events he reported included the trial and execution of presidential assassin Charles J. Guiteau, the Red River Rebellion led by Louis Riel, the