After the shooting, Guiteau tried to escape from the station, but others blocked the doors. A ticket agent first grabbed a hold of him until a police officer arrived from outside. Crowds began to form outside the station, including a group of black men who threatened to lynch the assassin (Garfield had been an abolitionist before the war and a champion of freedman’s rights after it). As the officer dragged him away, Guiteau took one of the letters he had written out of his pocket, demanding that it be delivered to General William Tecumseh Sherman. He had written Sherman in advance to inform him of his deed, tell him that he would be sent to prison, and request that the general come at once with his troops to liberate him. Guiteau was taken first to police headquarters and then to the district jail.

In the meantime, people scrambled to help the fallen president. A janitor tried to help him to his feet before realizing he could not stand. The attendant of the women’s waiting room then came over and rested Garfield’s head in her lap as he lay on the floor. Within five minutes, the city’s health officer, Dr. Smith Townsend, had arrived; over the next hour, nine other doctors would join him.