Do you want to know the
true story behind the men who killed the presidents?
Killing The Presidents offers a brief and fascinating look at
the Presidents who lost their lives, the motives and mental states of the
assassins, and the reactions of the public to the shootings.
Among the characters you
will meet are:
Charles Julius Guiteau, the man who shot James Garfield. He told
authorities “I was in my bed … and I was thinking over the political situation,
and the idea flashed through my brain that if the President was out of the way
everything would go better…” And later, during his trial, he added, “I presume
I shall live to be President. Some people think I am as a good man as the
President (Chester A. Arthur) now.”
John Schrank, the man who shot Theodore Roosevelt,
said “In a dream I saw President McKinley sit up in his coffin pointing at a
man in a monk’s attire in whom I recognized Theodore Roosevelt. The dead
President said—This is my murderer—avenge my death.” And, so he shot, and
wounded the Bull Moose Candidate.
John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Lincoln, wrote
in his diary just a few nights before his death, “I have to great a soul to die
like a criminal…”
The stories are amazing.
The similarities between
each of the assassinations make you sit up and think. Most of the assassins
discovered the President’s itinerary by reading the newspaper. Leon
Czolgosz, the assassin of President McKinley, told authorities, “Eight
days ago, while I was in Chicago, I read in a Chicago newspaper of President
McKinley’s visit to the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo. That day I bought a
ticket and got here with the determination to do something, but I did not know
just what. I thought of shooting the President…”
This is the story of the
assassinations, told as much as possible in the words of the witnesses, the
assassins, and the attempted assassins.
The book is short, just
108 pages, easy to read, and
will leave you wanting to investigate, and learn more about this dark area of
American history.
Some of the details are
quite graphic, such
as Surgeon Charles Taft describing the how they carried the dying Abraham
Lincoln to Petersen House – “blood [was] dripping from the wound, faster and
faster” as they walked. And, throughout the night, he held the dying
President’s head so blood and brain tissue could continue to ooze out, and
prevent clotting.
Other parts will make you
laugh. Giuseppe Zangara,
the man who attempted to kill Franklin Roosevelt was so short he had to stand
on a folding chair to get a good look at the President elect, and then he
testified he “decided to kill him and make him suffer…since my stomach hurt.”
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