Charles Guiteau (song) by Johnny Cash. Bascom Lamar Lunsford recorded both songs in 1949 for the Library of Congress. Charles Guiteau (song) "Charles Guiteau" (LAWS E11) Roud 444 is a traditional song about the assassination of US President James A. Garfield by Charles J. Guiteau. It is based on another old ballad, "James A. Rogers". The song is told from the point of view of the assassin himself. For a while, it was believed that Guiteau wrote the song himself, possibly because of the poem "I am Going to the Lordy", which Guiteau actually did write on the day of his execution. It
Charles J. Guiteau over the first time he fired it. Guiteau's pistol was recovered after the assassination, and even photographed by the Smithsonian in the early 20th century, but it has since been lost. On one occasion, Guiteau trailed Garfield to the railway station as the President was seeing his wife off to a beach resort in Long Branch, New Jersey, but he decided to postpone his plan because Garfield's wife Lucretia was in poor health and Guiteau did not want to upset her. Having been alerted to the president's schedule by a newspaper article, on July 2, 1881, he lay in wait