History is messy. We like to think of the American presidency as this untouchable, marble-statue kind of office, but the reality is way more violent and, honestly, quite a bit weirder than what you probably remember from eleventh-grade history. When we talk about presidents who were shot, the names Lincoln and Kennedy immediately jump to mind. They’re the pillars of the national tragedy. But the list is longer, and the details of how these men lived—and died—under fire reveal a lot about the evolution of American medicine and political rage.
It’s not just about the four who died. It’s about the ones who survived because of a thick coat or a long speech, and the one who died not because of a bullet, but because his doctors couldn't stop poking him with dirty fingers.
The Assassinations That Changed Everything
Abraham Lincoln was the first. It happened at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865. You know the basics: John Wilkes Booth, a deranged actor with a flair for the dramatic, snuck into the presidential box and fired a single .44-caliber lead ball into the back of Lincoln’s head. What people forget is how chaotic that night actually was. It wasn't just Lincoln. Booth had a whole team. They were supposed to kill the Vice President and the Secretary of State, too. It was a decapitation strike.
Lincoln lingered. He was carried across the street to the Petersen House because they didn't want him dying in a theater. He lived for nine hours. That night shifted the presidency from a leadership role into a target.
Then there’s James A. Garfield. This one is heartbreaking because the bullet didn't kill him. Not really. In 1881, Charles Guiteau shot him at a train station in Washington, D.C. The bullet lodged near his spine, but it didn't hit any vital organs. If Garfield had been shot today—or even twenty years later—he would have walked out of the hospital in a week. Instead, his doctors, including the lead physician Doctor Willard Bliss (yes, his first name was actually Doctor), kept sticking their unwashed fingers and probes into the wound to find the bullet. They turned a three-inch hole into a twenty-inch canal of infection. Garfield spent eighty days dying in absolute agony, basically rotting from the inside out because the medical establishment didn't believe in "germ theory" yet.
The Grassy Knoll and the End of Innocence
John F. Kennedy is the big one. November 22, 1963. Dallas. It’s the event that birthed the modern conspiracy theory. Lee Harvey Oswald fired from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, hitting Kennedy in the neck and head. The Zapruder film changed how we consume tragedy—it made the death of a president something you could watch on a loop. It felt different from Lincoln or McKinley because it was televised, raw, and high-definition for the era.
The Ones Who Walked It Off (Or Tried To)
We have to talk about Teddy Roosevelt. The man was a tank. In 1912, he was campaigning in Milwaukee when a guy named John Schrank shot him in the chest. Most people would fall over. Not Teddy. He realized that since he wasn't coughing up blood, the bullet hadn't hit his lungs. He had a 50-page speech folded in his pocket and a metal spectacle case; the bullet went through both, which slowed it down just enough.
He stood up and told the crowd, "Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot." Then he delivered a ninety-minute speech before finally going to the hospital. He lived the rest of his life with that bullet inside him. It was too dangerous to take out.
Ronald Reagan’s 1981 encounter with John Hinckley Jr. was much closer than the public realized at the time. Hinckley wasn't a political revolutionary; he was a disturbed kid trying to impress actress Jodie Foster. The bullet didn't hit Reagan directly; it ricocheted off the side of the presidential limousine and hit him under the left arm, collapsing a lung and stopping just an inch from his heart.
Reagan walked into the hospital on his own power, but collapsed once he was inside. His humor during the whole thing—telling the surgeons he hoped they were Republicans—masked the fact that he was minutes away from bleeding out. It’s arguably the closest a president has come to dying in office without actually crossing the line.
Why We Keep Misremembering McKinley
William McKinley is the "forgotten" assassination. He was shot in 1901 at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist, hid a gun under a handkerchief and shot McKinley twice at point-blank range.
Here’s the irony: The exposition was a celebration of modern technology. They had an early X-ray machine on display just a few buildings away. The doctors didn't use it because they were afraid of side effects or simply didn't trust the new tech. They also couldn't find the bullet, just like with Garfield. McKinley died of gangrene eight days later. His death is what gave us the Secret Service as we know it today. Before McKinley, the Secret Service mostly chased counterfeiters. After him, they became the permanent bodyguard detail.
The Most Recent Close Call: Donald Trump
In July 2024, the list of presidents who were shot (including former presidents) grew in a way that shocked the modern world. During a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump was grazed by a bullet fired by Thomas Matthew Crooks from a nearby rooftop.
It was a matter of millimeters. Trump turned his head at the exact second the shot was fired to look at a chart about immigration. That slight movement meant the bullet clipped his right ear instead of entering his skull. The image of Trump with blood on his face, fist in the air, became an instant historical artifact. It highlighted a massive failure in Secret Service perimeter security that sparked months of congressional hearings and led to the resignation of the Secret Service Director. It reminded everyone that the "marble statue" presidency is still very much a human, vulnerable target.
Medical Evolution and the "What Ifs"
If you look at the timeline, the survival rate for presidents who are shot has skyrocketed, but not because the assassins are getting worse. It’s the "Golden Hour."
- 1865: No antibiotics, no sterile surgery, no ambulances.
- 1881: Doctors actually introduced the infection that killed the patient.
- 1901: Rudimentary surgery, but still no way to fight systemic sepsis.
- 1981: Advanced trauma centers and rapid transport.
- 2024: Immediate tactical medical response and armored protection.
The Secret Service now travels with pints of the President’s specific blood type. They have a trauma doctor in the motorcade. The luck of the draw still matters—like Trump turning his head—but the safety net is lightyears beyond what Lincoln had.
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What Most People Get Wrong About the Motives
We like to think these shootings are always about grand political conspiracies. Sometimes they are, like Lincoln. Booth wanted to restart the Civil War. But often, it's just... sad.
- Guiteau shot Garfield because he thought God told him to and he was mad he didn't get a job as a consul in Paris.
- Hinckley shot Reagan because of a movie obsession.
- Czolgosz was a lonely man who felt "out of sorts" with the world and latched onto a violent ideology.
These weren't always "coups." They were often the intersection of mental health crises and a lack of security.
Actionable Insights for History Buffs and Travelers
If you’re interested in this side of American history, you shouldn't just read about it. You can actually see the physical evidence of these moments, which makes them feel a lot more real than a paragraph in a textbook.
1. Visit the National Museum of Health and Medicine
Located in Silver Spring, Maryland, this place is intense. They have the actual lead ball that killed Lincoln, along with fragments of his skull. They also have the vertebrae of James Garfield, showing exactly where the bullet hit. Seeing the physical bones makes the history much more visceral.
2. Explore Ford's Theatre
It’s still a working theater in D.C. You can stand in the lobby and see the Derringer pistol Booth used. Across the street is the Petersen House, where you can see the bed (a replica, the original is in a museum) where Lincoln died. It’s surprisingly small. It reminds you how "human-sized" these giants were.
3. Check out the "Buffalo History Museum"
If you’re ever in Western New York, this museum holds the artifacts from the McKinley assassination. It’s a somber look at a president who was genuinely popular at the time and whose death ushered in the era of Teddy Roosevelt.
4. Research the "Shadow Ranch"
For those interested in the Reagan era, looking into the security protocols at his California ranch shows how much the world changed after 1981. The "Post-Reagan" security bubble is what every president lives in now.
Understanding the history of presidents who were shot isn't just about morbidity. It’s about understanding the fragility of the American system. We are always one inch or one second away from a total shift in the global power structure. Whether it’s a theater in 1865 or a rally in 2024, these moments define the era that follows them.
The next step for any history enthusiast is to look past the names and dates. Look at the medical reports. Look at the trial transcripts of the assassins. That’s where the real, unvarnished story of the American presidency lives.