How accurate is Death by Lightning? Exploring facts vs fiction in the latest Netflix drama 

Death by Lightning opens up with us asking ourselves an extremely simple question: “Who is Charles Guiteau?” This is one question that sets the tone for Netflix’s newest historical mini-series, which is part political thriller, part tragedy, and it is also a mini-series that is completely obsessed with past truth.

However, it makes one wonder how much of what we see on-screen on Netflix has actually happened in American history. Turns out, the answer to this is: a lot.

While indeed some creative touches are added to pull you in, Death by Lightning does a remarkable job of staying as faithful as it can to the real story of President James Garfield’s rise and shocking fall.

Still, a few creative flourishes and rearranged timelines make this history lesson feel almost too cinematic to be real.

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Death by Lightning: A reluctant hero and an unexpected president

Netflix’s newest political mini-series, Death by Lightning, paints James Garfield (Michael Shannon) as a humble man who never once dreamed of sitting in the White House.

The show starts off with him literally building a table as if it were to remind us that this guy’s hands were made for work and not politics. And believe it or not, that detail is very much spot-on. Garfield was, in fact, happier on his Ohio farm than he was in Washington.

The Netflix show captures his accidental climb to power almost too faithfully. Garfield attended the 1880 Republican Convention just to nominate another politician, but when he gave a fiery, unexpected speech about Lincoln’s legacy, all of the delegates in the room went absolutely wild.

Within hours, the man who never once wanted to be president became the party’s unexpected nominee. This actually happened, and Garfield’s real reaction was hilariously relatable. “My God, they will ruin me,” he wrote in his diary, feeling genuinely horrified at what had transpired right before his very own eyes and mind.

What Death by Lightning nails is Garfield’s confusion between duty and his ambition and desires. The show subtly questions if he really didn’t want the presidency or if he was simply scared of what it might eventually cost him.

Creator Mike Makowsky told Netflix’s Tudum that Garfield:

“Deserved the platform he received, largely against his will...”

This quote by the very creator of the show sums up how the mini-series sees him. The show directly portrays him as a good man who has now been trapped in the wrong moment of history.

There’s a touching scene in the Netflix series when Garfield gives his bed to a war veteran who can’t seem to find a proper place to sleep. This again is not just fiction, but it is something that Garfield actually did. The man shared Garfield’s bed the night before his big speech, and Garfield later joked to his wife that he “couldn’t get a minute of rest.”

This very small act of kindness sets up the show’s larger theme: This was a president who simply believed deeply in serving the people, even when the world didn’t believe in him.

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Charles Guiteau: Ambition that has now clearly gone totally wrong

Matthew Macfadyen’s Charles Guiteau might be one of the wildest characters ever that have been based on a true story. The show turns him into this sort of tragic mixed bag of comedy, delusion, and loneliness, and yes, almost everything about Macfadyen’s character is also, again, extremely real.

Guiteau really did live in a strange 19th-century commune called the Oneida Community, where everyone shared everything, including romantic partners. The twist? Even in a free-love commune, Guiteau could not find anyone willing to sleep with him. That cruel reality is actually true, and in return, the women of the era nicknamed him “Charles Gitout.”

After being kicked out, Guiteau wandered through life, constantly switching up his careers as well as his ideologies. The show portrays him as someone who believed greatness was simply owed to him, and historically, that’s accurate as well. When Garfield was elected, Guiteau truly thought he himself had helped make it happen.

He printed copies of his campaign speech, handed them out like he'd hand out business cards, and then demanded a reward. The reward is a job as the U.S. consul in Paris. When he didn’t get it, well, that's when he snapped.

Makowsky told Tudum that he modeled Guiteau after Rupert Pupkin from Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy. Almost like a completely delusional man who is always seeking out and desperate for validation. The comparison here then fits perfectly, as both of the men seemed to have confused their delusion and obsession with destiny.

The show keeps the historical details intact as much as it can. Whether it be Guiteau haunting the White House halls, begging for appointments or jobs, even faking letters to get what he wanted.

One chilling scene in the series that mirrors the above is when he meets the First Lady, Lucretia Garfield (Betty Gilpin), and seems almost charming, but this in turn, makes his later actions feel even more horrific. It’s this false sweetness, that misplaced sense of purpose, that Death by Lightning gets eerily right.

And yes, the title’s meaning? That comes straight from Garfield himself. He once said that assassinations couldn’t be predicted; they were like “death by lightning.”

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Medicine, malpractice, and a president’s slow death

If you think that Death by Lightning on Netflix feels too brutal to be true, it’s because the reality at the time was far worse than it is today. After Garfield was shot, he didn’t die right away, and this is exactly where fact meets horror. The show’s depiction of his treatment is yet again horrifyingly accurate.

Dr. Willard Bliss (played by Željko Ivanek) really did dig into Garfield’s back wound with unsterilized hands. Another doctor, Charles Purvis (Shaun Parkes), begged him to stop and use clean tools, but Bliss refused, calling the idea of “invisible germs” nonsense.

Historian Candice Millard, whose book Destiny of the Republic inspired the show, has said that Garfield’s bullet wound wasn’t fatal at all. The bullet missed every single important organ. What killed him at the end was the infection that had formed, caused by Bliss’s constant poking and prodding. The Netflix mini-series captures this chilling truth without any sense of exaggeration. Bliss even billed Congress $25,000 for his “services” after Garfield died.

The Netflix show also adds emotionality by bringing in Alexander Graham Bell, who really did try to save the president using a metal detector of his own invention. In a painful twist, Bell’s device actually worked, but Bliss only let him search one side of Garfield’s body, convinced that’s where the bullet was. It wasn’t. That tiny mistake sealed the president’s fate.

What’s fascinating about this part of Death by Lightning is how it mirrors the stubbornness of an entire era. America was on the edge of medical discovery, yet still stuck in superstition. Bliss’s disbelief in germs literally killed the President of the United States.

The show doesn’t exaggerate this tragedy, and if anything, it actually tones it down. In real life, Garfield’s body was riddled with infection; his wound stretched from three inches to twenty-one. That’s not fiction. That’s a fact, and it is devastating.

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Fact, fiction, and the legacy the show resurrects

So now we get to the real question of why we started with this rant in the very first place. Where does Death by Lightning take its creative liberties? Mostly in the softer and not-so-politically impactful moments. The kind of scenes that make you feel something.

For instance, the conversations between Garfield and his wife, Crete, are partially invented, but they do add depth to her real-life intelligence and her strength.

Another one of such cases is when Lucretia visits Guiteau in prison in the show. This is completely fictional, but then again, it is indeed powerful. In that scene, she tells him that his legacy will amount to nothing.

According to actor Matthew Macfadyen, that’s “the worst thing he could hear,” and it makes perfect sense. Guiteau didn’t crave money or fame, but all he craved and wanted was meaning. The Netflix series invents this meeting to give emotional closure that history couldn’t.

Other details, like Vice President Chester Arthur’s moral transformation, are condensed for drama but still rooted in truth. After Garfield’s death, Arthur genuinely pushed for civil service reforms that changed American politics forever. Nick Offerman plays him with a mix of guilt and redemption, and it’s surprisingly close to how history remembers him.

Makowsky told Tudum that his goal wasn’t to rewrite Garfield’s story but to reintroduce him to people who barely knew he existed. He said:

“He’s been relegated to this obscure footnote...and I wanted people to see the man we lost — and maybe what we could still learn from him.”

All in all, this is what makes Death by Lightning so compelling. It doesn’t need to make up much because the truth was already unbelievable.

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In the end, Death by Lightning proves that history does not need any embellishment to break your heart. Almost every major event in the show, from Garfield’s accidental nomination to the medical horrors that followed, are events that actually happened.

The few fictional touches only make the story more human. Netflix has turned a forgotten slice of American history into a gut-punch of a drama that’s both accurate and unforgettable. If you thought political scandals were bad today, wait till you meet Garfield and Guiteau.

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