James A. Garfield (1831 - 1881) was an American politician, lawyer and army officer who served as the twentieth president of the United States in 1881. [1] Rising from poverty in rural Ohio, he became a college president, a Union major general in the American Civil War, and a nine-term member of the House of Representatives before his election to the presidency. He was shot by an assassin four months into his term and died that September, making his the second-shortest presidency in American history. [2]
Early life and education
Garfield was born on 19 November 1831 in Moreland Hills, Ohio, into a family of modest means; his father died when he was an infant, and he was raised in poverty by his mother. [1] He worked as a canal boat driver and a carpenter before pursuing an education, attending the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, later known as Hiram College, and then Williams College in Massachusetts, from which he graduated in 1856.
He returned to Hiram to teach classical languages and literature, and within two years had become the institution's principal. He also studied law and was admitted to the bar, and in 1859 he won election to the Ohio State Senate as a Republican. [2]
Civil War service
When the Civil War began, Garfield helped raise the 42nd Ohio Infantry and was commissioned as its colonel. He won an early success in eastern Kentucky at the Battle of Middle Creek in 1862 and went on to serve at Shiloh and as chief of staff to General William S. Rosecrans in the Army of the Cumberland. His conduct at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863 earned him promotion to major general. [1]
Congressional career
While still in uniform, Garfield was elected to the United States House of Representatives from Ohio in 1862, taking his seat the following year at President Abraham Lincoln's urging that experienced Republicans were more needed in Congress than in the field. He served nine consecutive terms, becoming an authority on federal finance and appropriations and eventually the leading House Republican. [3] He supported Reconstruction and the civil and voting rights of freed slaves, and sat on the electoral commission that resolved the disputed presidential election of 1876.
Presidency and assassination
In 1880 the Ohio legislature elected Garfield to the United States Senate, but before he could take the seat the deadlocked Republican National Convention turned to him as a compromise nominee for president on the thirty-sixth ballot. He narrowly won the general election over Winfield Scott Hancock and was inaugurated on 4 March 1881. [2]
His short tenure was dominated by a struggle with the patronage-minded Stalwart faction of his own party over federal appointments, a fight he largely won, and by the prosecution of the Star Route postal fraud scandal. On 2 July 1881, at a Washington railroad station, he was shot by Charles J. Guiteau, a disappointed office seeker. Garfield lingered for eleven weeks, his condition worsened by the unsterile probing of his wound by his physicians, and died at Elberon, New Jersey, on 19 September 1881. [1]
Legacy
Garfield's murder by a man who believed he was owed a government job galvanised public opinion against the spoils system and helped secure passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act in 1883, which established merit-based hiring for federal positions. [4] Because he held office for only 200 days, his record as president rests largely on that indirect consequence and on the reform instincts he displayed in his brief confrontation with party patronage.
