If American politics was a book, it would have many harrowing chapters. Marked by civil and international wars, depressions, recessions, scandals and presidential assassinations, the USA has experienced its fair share of tumultuous events since the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4 1776. 

Four US presidents have been assassinated while in office – most famously Abraham Lincoln, who played a major role in the abolition of slavery and was killed in 1865, and almost a century later, JFK, whose death in 1963 rocked the world. Many more attempted assassinations have been made, including Ronald Reagan in 1981 and then-former president Donald Trump just last year. One that’s often overlooked, however, is the assassination of 20^th president James A Garfield in September 1881 – and how it irrevocably changed the course of not only history, but also the world of medicine. 

Two weeks prior to Garfield’s unlikely presidential win in March 1881, he wrote: “Assassination can no more be guarded against than death by lightning.” Little did he know how significant these words would come to be. He was shot 200 days later; a presidency that had so much potential cut tragically short by a delusional assassin who happened to be acquainted with Garfield. 

Matthew Macfadyen as Charles Guiteau

Michael Shannon as James A Garfield

Garfield’s life and death is now the subject of a new four-part Netflix series aptly named Death by Lightning, which is out today (6 November 2025). Based on Candice Millard’s 2011 book Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, the series depicts a country grappling with technological, political and industrial change while dealing with its complicated past. Death by Lightning creator Mike Makowsky told Tudum: “The theme of corruption in politics and our bureaucracy feels particularly evergreen these days.

“The idea of civil service reform and waging a battle to clean up the grift in our government – this is something that Garfield very much stood on the front lines of in his time. In 1881, it feels like America is sort of standing at a crossroads between the past and what the future of this country is going to look like, and it’s up to [people like Garfield] to really define how America, 100 years after its inception, is going to look and what kind of society they’re going to be.”

The series charts the supposed unintentional rise of Garfield, played in the Netflix series by Michael Shannon. A preacher, lawyer, and Civil War general who was born into poverty in Ohio, the Republican Garfield was elected to the Senate in 1880, but committed himself to supporting John Sherman as that year’s presidential nominee. At the time, the Republican party was split into two feuding factions: ‘Half-Breeds’, who wanted civil service reform, and ‘Stalwarts’, who did not. As voting began, Garfield emerged as a front runner for his ability to unite both sides. Despite stating he didn’t want the post, he won and was officially sworn in as the 20^th president of the United States on 4 March 1881. 

While Garfield was busy attempting to keep the peace among a fractured Republican party, Charles Guiteau (played in Death by Lightning by Matthew Macfadyen), a complicated and mentally unstable schizophrenic raised by an abusive father, was trying to start his own newspaper and passed the Illinois bar exam to practice law, before becoming fascinated with politics. 

Macfadyen as Guiteau

Desperate for a job in the White House, Guiteau switched his support from the Stalwart’s leader and former president, Ulysses Grant, to favouring Garfield when he saw how the dark horse candidate might rise to prominence. Having delivered just one campaign speech, which drew crowds of less than two dozen, when Garfield won, Guiteau believed he was a vital cog in the machine. “He’s always after something, he’s always reaching for something, and he’s always in action,” Macfadyen told Tudum. “He’s desperate for attention or a job or for someone to read his speech that he’s written.”

In the late 1800s, the White House was open to the public, and those seeking jobs in office would crowd the lobby and wait around all day for their chance to meet the president. Garfield hated this practice, while Guiteau was one of those often in the waiting room. The two did meet once: Guiteau handed Garfield a speech he had written, Garfield politely took the note and shook his hand. The Netflix series makes a little more of this conversation, with Guiteau expressing his admiration for Garfield, and saying “Tell me how I can be great, too.” Garfield is confused and makes his excuse to leave. 

Following their meeting, Guiteau became completely fascinated by Garfield’s every move. His obsession became so intense that Guiteau was essentially banned from the White House. Certain he was owed a consulship for his campaigning, he presented a forged letter of recommendation from Garfield to Secretary of State James Blaine. He was refused and told to leave, sparking his ambition to assassinate the president he believed had betrayed him. 

16 years after the assasination of Abraham Lincoln, the White House had learned little about protection (presidents were not given state protection until 1902) and it’s this failure that enabled Guiteau to fire two bullets at the president in Washington’s Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station on 2 July 1881. Garfield didn’t die of his injuries and was transferred into the care of Dr D Willard Bliss: a former army surgeon who was no stranger to presidential assassinations, having tended to the shooting of Lincoln in 1865. 

But, while Garfield’s injuries weren’t fatal, the unsanitary techniques used by Bliss and his team of doctors proved to be. Among many other things, they did not wash their hands before treating open wounds and, combined with the intense summer heat, Garfield suffered intense septicaemia. 

Two months after he’d been shot, doctors decided to move Garfield to a cooler climate in New Jersey via a journey along temporary railroad tracks and in a special train car lined with mattresses to keep the president stable, according to the National Park Service. He showed signs of temporary improvement before reporting severe chest pain on 19 September and dying a few minutes later. Many deem his elongated, painful death as an American tragedy. 

The negligence of Garfield’s medical team emboldened Guiteau, who suggested while on trial that it was they who had killed the president. Guiteau’s legal team tried to save him from the gallows by declaring he had ‘hereditary insanity’ but he was deemed sane and sentenced to death on 30 June 1882 – two days shy of the one year anniversary of Garfield’s death. 

In the aftermath, Garfield’s successor and vice president, Chester A Arthur, vowed to continue his legacy, and Garfield is fondly remembered for championing the civil rights of African Americans in the post-Civil War era. Bliss’s incompetence, for which he was publicly disgraced, marked a turning point in the world of medicine, and antiseptic precautions soon became the norm throughout America. 

Talking to Tudum about the series, Millard says it will alter how Garfield is remembered, not only by history but by the modern world. “I hoped, in my small way, through a book, that I could bring him back to life. But I feel [...] this series will bring so many more to Garfield’s story and the understanding of what we lost at that time. And maybe the understanding of what we could have again.”

Makowsky adds: “He’s been relegated to this obscure footnote. I wanted to be able to introduce people to a man I think we all wish that we could have known.”

Death by Lightning is available to stream on Netflix now.

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