I am Going to the Lordy I am Going to the Lordy "I am Going to the Lordy" is a poem written by Charles J. Guiteau, the assassin of U.S. President James A. Garfield. He wrote it on June 30, 1882, the morning of his execution. He read it at the gallows. "I am Going to the Lordy" was used as a base for the song "The Ballad of Guiteau" in the Stephen Sondheim musical "Assassins", where Guiteau sings a version of the song while cakewalking up and down the scaffold. On 30 June 1882, the day of the execution of Guiteau for the assassination of
Charles R. Skinner in Washington D.C. in 1882, and had been asked to attend the execution of Garfield's assassin, Charles Guiteau, but was unable to attend due to the illness of his daughter. He was invited to Czolgosz's execution by the warden of Auburn Prison, and attended as one of only twelve "official" witnesses to the execution as required by New York law. Less than two months after shooting McKinley, Czolgosz was executed on October 29, 1901 in Auburn Prison. Czolgosz was executed in the electric chair, an early usage of this new form of execution. Thomas Edison later re-enacted the execution in