 Over the next few days , Garfield made some improvement , as the nation viewed the news from the capital and prayed . Although he never stood again , he was able to sit up and write several times , and his recovery was viewed so positively that a steamer was fitted out as a seagoing hospital to aid with his convalescence . He was nourished on oatmeal ( which he detested ) and milk from a cow on the White House lawn . When told that Indian chief Sitting Bull , a prisoner of the army , was starving , Garfield said , " Let him starve " , then , " Oh , no , send him my oatmeal . " Alexander Graham Bell tried to locate the bullet with a primitive metal detector ; he was not successful . One means of keeping the president comfortable in Washington 's summer heat was one of the first successful air conditioning units : air that was propelled by fans over ice and then dried had reduced the temperature in the sickroom by 20 degrees Fahrenheit ( 11 degrees Celsius ) . 
