A narrative account of the twentieth president's political career offers insight into his background as a scholar and Civil War hero, his battles against the corrupt establishment, and Alexander Graham Bell's failed attempt to save him from an assassin's bullet.

From 1848 to 1881, a small utopian colony in upstate New York, the Oneida Community, was known for its shocking sexual practices, from open marriage and free love to the sexual training of young boys by older women. And in 1881, a one-time member of the Oneida Community, Charles Julius Guiteau, assassinated President James Garfield in a brutal crime that shook America to its core. This is the first book to weave together these explosive stories in...

Lincoln watched a play. Garfield walked through a train station. McKinley shook hands with his public. Kennedy smiled and waved from a motorcade. In these moments shots rang out and four presidents suffered mortal wounds. Some say their assassins were calculating killers. Others say they were madmen guided by strange notions of the world. Assassins' America examines the life of each killer and his victim. Their stories are full of twists and mysteries,...

President James Garfield was walking through a train station when a gunman shot him in the back. A mad scene erupted as Garfield bled on the floor and a crowd surrounded the shooter. Who was this strange man and why had he shot the new president? The answers to those questions became clear as Garfield lay wounded, fighting for life while hapless doctors did more harm than good. In a drama that stretched for weeks, the United States saw a second president...