# Assassination of James Garfield: The Bullet Didn't Kill Him | Pt. 1

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/this-feels-criminal-a-true-crime-podcast-formerly-killer-queens-688053/assassination-of-james-garfield-the-bullet-didn-t-kill-him-pt-1
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/this-feels-criminal-a-true-crime-podcast-formerly-killer-queens-688053/assassination-of-james-garfield-the-bullet-didn-t-kill-him-pt-1.md
Podcast: [This Feels Criminal: A True Crime Podcast (Formerly Killer Queens)](https://stenobird.com/podcast/this-feels-criminal-a-true-crime-podcast-formerly-killer-queens-688053)
Published: 2026-07-07T21:49:00+00:00
Episode link: https://c0b0f33f-1a7d-4159-9c72-ac64e29a132b.libsyn.com/assassination-of-james-garfield-the-bullet-didnt-kill-him-pt-1
Audio file: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/claritaspod.com/measure/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/c0b0f33f-1a7d-4159-9c72-ac64e29a132b/KQP443_JamesGarfield_P1_First_Edit.mp3?dest-id=5408875
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/this-feels-criminal-a-true-crime-podcast-formerly-killer-queens-688053/episodes/assassination-of-james-garfield-the-bullet-didn-t-kill-him-pt-1
Duration seconds: 2321

## Resource

Founding Felons is back! A bullet put President James Garfield on the floor of a train station in 1881 — but it wasn't the bullet that killed him. In Part 1 of Founding Felons Week, Tyrella and Nikita trace the unlikely life of James A. Garfield: the dirt-poor Ohio farm boy who couldn't swim but dreamed of being a sailor, and the self-taught general who went on to win the closest popular-vote election in U.S. history. Four months into his presidency, he was shot at a Washington train station — and then handed over to his doctors. We get into the shooting, Dr. Charles Burleigh Purvis (the first Black physician to treat a sitting president, and the one man in the room who was right), and the nearly 80-day medical disaster that followed — the finger-probed wound, the misfired Alexander Graham Bell metal detector, and the sepsis that did what the gun couldn't. Part 2 drops Thursday: the assassin, Charles Guiteau, and a trial that went completely off the rails. Patrons can listen now. Content warning: graphic 19th-century medical detail and descriptions of an infected gunshot wound.

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/this-feels-criminal-a-true-crime-podcast-formerly-killer-queens-688053/episodes/assassination-of-james-garfield-the-bullet-didn-t-kill-him-pt-1/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/this-feels-criminal-a-true-crime-podcast-formerly-killer-queens-688053/assassination-of-james-garfield-the-bullet-didn-t-kill-him-pt-1.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.