The casket was laid in state beneath the great dome of the Capitol, within a short distance of the spot where, on the 4th of March previous, the occupant had pronounced his inaugural address. For two days thousands of citizens, of all classes, conditions, and nationalities, reverentially filed past the coffin and gazed upon the wasted form and pallid lineaments of the deceased. On Friday the afflicted widow took the last look at the face of the dead, and after she had left the impressive funeral ceremonies were performed. The remains were then escorted by the military, their arms reversed, their flags shrouded, and their bands wailing dirges, to the depot where the assassination took place, where they were placed on a railroad train to be conveyed to Cleveland with his family and a large number of distinguished mourners.
The funeral train arrived at Cleveland on the afternoon of September 24th, and on the 26th the remains of the nation's second martyr- President were consigned to their last resting-place, amid the flashing lightning and the rolling thunder of a severe storm. The day was consecrated all over the country to manifestation of respect for the memory of the dead, and messages of condolence were flashed beneath the Atlantic from the leading foreign powers of the Old World, expressing their regard for the memory of a ruler who had endeared himself to the wide world by the heroism of humanity. As the muffled bells in fifty thousand steeples tolled the burial hour, the hearts of fifty millions of people beat in homage to the deceased President, whose remains were being entombed on the shore of Lake Erie. Public and private edifices were lavishly decorated in black, there were processions in the Northern cities, and funeral services in many congregations, eliciting the remark that the prayers of Christian people in all quarters of the globe "following the sun and keeping company with the hours," had circled the earth with an unbroken strain of mourning and sympathy. Criticism was silenced, faults were forgotten, and nothing but good was spoken of the dead.
Charles Guiteau, the cowardly wretch who assassinated General Garfield, was a native of Chicago, thirty-six years of age, short in stature, and with a well-knit, stout frame. He had led a vagabond life, and had come to Washington after the inauguration of General Garfield, seeking appointment to a foreign consulate, and when he found himself disappointed, his morbid imagination sought revenge. Attorney-General MacVeagh, who was then bent on making political mischief by the Star-route prosecutions, made himself ridiculous when General Garfield died by asserting that the United States had jurisdiction over the cottage in which the President died, and endeavoring to exclude the New Jersey authorities. He then appeared to take no interest in the prosecution of Guiteau, and although he had employed eminent legal talent in the Star-route and Howgate cases, he gave District Attorney Corkhill no aid in the trial of the assassin until President Arthur gave peremptory instructions that Messrs. Porter and Davidge should be employed. They came in to the case at a late day, and were forced to depend almost wholly upon the District-Attorney for bearings.
Colonel George A. Corkhill, the District Attorney, was a native of Ohio, then forty-four years of age. After graduating from the Iowa Wesleyan University he entered Harvard Law School, where he remained over a year, when, at the breaking out of the Rebellion, he entered the army, serving faithfully until the close of the war. After having practiced at St. Louis, he married a daughter of Justice Miller, of the Supreme Court, and came to Washington in 1872 as editor of the Daily Chronicle. In January, 1880, President Hayes appointed him District Attorney.
From the day on which General Garfield was shot, Colonel Corkhill began industriously to "work up the case." He obtained the evidence, studied precedents, hunted up witnesses, and, unaided by any other counsel, had Guiteau indicted and arraigned. The admirable preparation of the case, the spirit of justice, the fairness so liberally extended to the prisoner and his counsel, and the judicious and effective conduct of the trial to a just and satisfactory conclusion were mainly due to him. His management of the case from the start was beyond all praise. From his opening speech he displayed great good sense, added to a perfect understanding of the facts, a marked talent for criminal practice, thorough judgment of men, and an extraordinary dignity of bearing. With admirable temper and self-control, he submitted to indignity and insult in the court-house, which the judge was unable to restrain, and to unmerited obloquy, without arousing misapprehension and misconstruction.
The trial lasted eleven weeks, but it could not be said to have been a wearying or tiresome exhibition. On the contrary, none of the sensational plays that had been in vogue for years past had been crowded with more dramatic situations and unexpected displays.
This most remarkable of criminal trials came at last to an end, and the promptitude of the jury in rendering a verdict of "guilty," conveyed a sharp rebuke to the lawyers who spent so many wearisome days in summing up the case. In due time atonement for the great crime was made on the scaffold, so far, at least, as human laws can go. The nation then rested easier and breathed freer, happy in the fact that the meanest of cowardly knaves had passed to his long account.
[Facsimile] Leut Genl P.H. Sheridan PHILIP HENRY SHERIDAN was born at Somerset, Ohio, March 6th, 1831; was graduated from the Military Academy at West Point, and commissioned as Brevet Second Lieutenant July 1st, 1853; served on the Pacific coast, and at the outbreak of the War for the Suppression of the Rebellion was Chief Quartermaster of the Army of Missouri; distinguished himself as a cavalry commander; he was made Brigadier and then Major-General of Volunteers, and received the commission of Major-General in the regular army for his gallantry at Cedar Creek, October 19th, 1864, when he achieved a brilliant victory for the third time in pitched battle within thirty days; was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-General March 4th, 1869, and became Commander of the Army on the retirement of General Sherman, February 8th, 1884.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. VICE-PRESIDENT ARTHUR BECOMES PRESIDENT.
When President Garfield was assassinated Vice-President Arthur was on his way from Albany to New York, on a steamboat, and received the intelligence on landing. That night he went to Washington, where he was the guest of Senator Jones, who then occupied the large granite house directly south of the Capitol, erected a few years previously by General Butler. On the evening of July 4th, when the President's death seemed imminent, Secretary Blaine visited Mr. Arthur and said: "The end is at hand; the President is dying; you must prepare to assume the responsibilities which the Constitution places upon you in such an event."