Mentor's sad presidential legacy: James Garfield

MENTOR, Ohio -- President Obama kicks off his Saturday campaigning in a city that already has a presidential legacy -- a sad one.

Mentor. Ohio, was the home of James Garfield, the 20th president of the United States and, in 1881, the victim of an assassin's bullet -- and poor medical care.

A crazed and frustrated office seeker named Charles Guiteau shot Garfield in a Washington, D.C. train station on July 2, 1881.

Modern medical care would have undoubtedly saved Garfield's life -- and contemporary doctoring should have done the trick.

But Garfield's doctors were unfamiliar with the then-nascent science of sterilization, and infected his body as they probed unsuccessfully for a bullet that was lodged inside the president.

Garfield died on Sept. 19, 1881, less than seven months after taking office.