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| James Abram Garfield | |
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| | |
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| In office March 4, 1881 – September 19, 1881 | |
| Vice President | Chester A. Arthur |
| Preceded by | Rutherford B. Hayes |
| Succeeded by | Chester A. Arthur |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives | |
| In office March 4, 1863 – March 3, 1881 | |
| Preceded by | Albert G. Riddle |
| Succeeded by | Ezra B. Taylor |
| Born | November 19 1831 Moreland Hills, Ohio |
| Died | September 19 1881 (aged 49) Elberon (Long Branch), New Jersey |
| Nationality | American |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | Lucretia Rudolph Garfield |
| Alma mater | Williams College |
| Occupation | Lawyer, Educator, Minister |
| Religion | Disciples of Christ |
| Signature | 
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James Abram Garfield (November 19, 1831–September 19, 1881) was the twentieth President of the United States. He had also served as a major general in the United States Army, and as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Garfield was the second U.S. President to be assassinated — Abraham Lincoln was the first. Garfield had the second shortest presidency in U.S. history, after William Henry Harrison\'s. In office for six months and fifteen days, President Garfield, a Republican, served for less than four months before being shot and fatally wounded on July 2, 1881. He is the only member of the House of Representatives to have been in office when elected President.
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Garfield was born in Orange Township, now Moreland Hills, Ohio of Welsh ancestry. His father, Abram Garfield, died in 1833, when James Abram was 17 months old; he was brought up and cared for by his mother, Eliza Ballou, a brother, and an uncle.Section One: The Log Cabin. James Garfield Study Guide. SparkNotes. Retrieved on 2007-08-28. In Orange Township, Garfield attended school, a predecessor of the Orange City Schools. From 1851 to 1854, he attended the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (later named Hiram College) in Hiram, Ohio. He then transferred to Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he was a brother of Delta Upsilon fraternity. He graduated in 1856 as an outstanding student who enjoyed all subjects except chemistry. Garfield ruled out becoming a preacher and considered a job as principal of a high school in Poestenkill, New York.Peskin, Allan (1978). Garfield. Kent State University Press, p. 45. ISBN 0873382102. After losing that job to another applicant, he taught at the Eclectic Institute. Garfield was an instructor in classical languages for the 1856–1857 academic year, and was made principal of the Institute from 1857 to 1860.
The Garfield homestead.
On November 11, 1858, he married Lucretia Rudolph. They had seven children (five sons and two daughters): Eliza Arbella Garfield (1860–63); Harry Augustus Garfield (1863–1942); James Rudolph Garfield (1865–1950); Mary Garfield (1867–1947); Irvin M. Garfield (1870–1951); Abram Garfield (1872–1958); and Edward Garfield (1874–76). One son, James R. Garfield, followed him into politics and became Secretary of the Interior under President Theodore Roosevelt. In the mid-1860s, Garfield had an affair with Lucia Calhoun, which he later admitted to his wife, who forgave him.Garfield, James A.. Encyclopædia Britannica\'s Guide to American Presidents. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.. Retrieved on 2008-03-04.
Garfield decided that the academic life was not for him and studied law privately. He was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1860. Even before admission to the bar, he entered politics. He was elected an Ohio state senator in 1859, serving until 1861. He was a Republican all his political life.
| James Abram Garfield | |
|---|---|
| November 19, 1831 - September 19, 1881 (age 49) | |
 General James A. Garfield | |
| Place of birth | Moreland Hills, Ohio |
| Place of death | Long Branch, New Jersey |
| Allegiance | United States of America |
| Years of service | 1861 - 1863 |
| Rank | Major General |
| Commands | 42nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry 20th Brigade, 6th Division, Army of the Ohio |
| Battles/wars | *American Civil War *Battle of Shiloh *Siege of Corinth *Battle of Chickamauga *Battle of Middle Creek |
| Other work | U.S. Representative from Ohio, 20th President of the United States |
With the start of the Civil War, Garfield enlisted in the Union Army, and was assigned to command the 42nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry. General Don Carlos Buell assigned Colonel Garfield the task of driving Confederate forces out of eastern Kentucky in November 1861, giving him the 18th Brigade for the campaign. In December, he departed Catlettsburg, Kentucky, with the 40th and 42nd Ohio and the 14th and 22nd Kentucky infantry regiments, as well as the 2nd (West) Virginia Cavalry and McLoughlin\'s Squadron of Cavalry. The march was uneventful until Union forces reached Paintsville, Kentucky, where Garfield\'s cavalry engaged the Confederate cavalry at Jenny\'s Creek on January 6, 1862. The Confederates, under Brig. Gen. Humphrey Marshall, withdrew to the forks of Middle Creek, two miles (3 km) from Prestonsburg, Kentucky, on the road to Virginia. Garfield attacked on January 9. At the end of the day\'s fighting, the Confederates withdrew from the field, but Garfield did not pursue them. He ordered a withdrawal to Prestonsburg so he could resupply his men. His victory brought him early recognition and a promotion to the rank of brigadier general on January 11.
Garfield served as a brigade commander under Buell at the Battle of Shiloh and under Thomas J. Wood in the subsequent Siege of Corinth. His health deteriorated and he was inactive until autumn, when he served on the commission investigating the conduct of Fitz John Porter. In the spring of 1863, Garfield returned to the field as Chief of Staff for William S. Rosecrans, commander of the Army of the Cumberland.
In 1863, he re-entered politics, being elected to the United States House of Representatives for the 38th Congress. Garfield was promoted to major general after the Battle of Chickamauga, shortly after he had been elected. He left the army and returned to Ohio to take his seat in Congress. He succeeded in gaining re-election every two years up through 1878. In the House during the Civil War and the following Reconstruction era, he was one of the most hawkish Republicans. In 1872, he was one of many congressman involved in the Crédit Mobilier of America scandal. Garfield denied the charges against him and it did not put too much of a strain on his political career since the actual impact of the scandal was difficult to determine. In 1876, when James G. Blaine moved from the House to the United States Senate, Garfield became the Republican floor leader of the House.
In 1876, Garfield was a Republican member of the Electoral Commission that awarded 22 hotly-contested electoral votes to Rutherford B. Hayes in his contest for the Presidency against Samuel J. Tilden. That year, he also purchased the property in Mentor that reporters later dubbed Lawnfield, and from which he would go on to conduct the first successful front porch campaign for the Presidency. The home is now maintained by the National Park Service as the James A. Garfield National Historic Site.
In 1880, Garfield\'s life underwent tremendous change with the publication of the Morey letter, and the end of Democratic U.S. Senator Allen Granberry Thurman\'s term. The Ohio legislature, which had recently again come under Republican control, chose Garfield to fill Thurman\'s seat. However, at the Republican National Convention Garfield gained support for the party\'s Presidential nomination, and on the 36th ballot Garfield was nominated, with virtually all of Blaine\'s and John Sherman\'s delegates breaking ranks to vote for the dark horse nominee. As it happened, the U.S. Senate seat to which Garfield had been chosen ultimately went to Sherman, whose Presidential candidacy Garfield had gone to the convention to support.
In the general election, Garfield defeated the Democratic candidate Winfield Scott Hancock, another distinguished former Union Army general, by 214 electoral votes to 155. (The popular vote had a plurality of 9,464 votes out of more than nine million cast; see U.S. presidential election, 1880.) He became the only man ever to be elected to the Presidency straight from the House of Representatives. Garfield took office on March 4, 1881.
| The Garfield Cabinet | ||
|---|---|---|
| OFFICE | NAME | TERM |
| President | James A. Garfield | 1881 |
| Vice President | Chester A. Arthur | 1881 |
| Secretary of State | James G. Blaine | 1881 |
| Secretary of Treasury | William Windom | 1881 |
| Secretary of War | Robert Todd Lincoln | 1881 |
| Attorney General | Wayne MacVeagh | 1881 |
| Postmaster General | Thomas L. James | 1881 |
| Secretary of the Navy | William H. Hunt | 1881 |
| Secretary of the Interior | Samuel J. Kirkwood | 1881 |
Between his election and his inauguration, Garfield was occupied with constructing a cabinet that would balance all Republican factions. Blaine was rewarded with the State Department. William Windom of Minnesota was named secretary of the Treasury. The Navy Department was headed by William H. Hunt of Louisiana; the War Department by Robert Todd Lincoln; and the Interior Department by Iowa\'s Samuel J. Kirkwood. Wayne MacVeagh of Pennsylvania was asked to be Attorney General, and New York was represented by Postmaster General Thomas Lemuel James. This last appointment infuriated Garfield\'s Stalwart rival Roscoe Conkling, who demanded nothing less for his faction and his state than the Treasury Department. He was so insulted that he, in effect, declared war on the administration.
This unedifying squabble would consume the energies of the brief Garfield presidency. It overshadowed promising activities such as Blaine\'s efforts to build closer ties with Latin America, Postmaster General James\'s investigation of the "star route" postal frauds, and Windom\'s successful refinancing of the federal debt.
The feud with Conkling reached a climax when the President, at Blaine\'s instigation, nominated Conkling\'s enemy, Judge William H. Robertson, to be collector of the port of New York. Conkling raised the time-honored principle of senatorial courtesy in attempting to defeat the nomination but to no avail. Finally he and his junior colleague, Thomas C. Platt, resigned their Senate seats to seek vindication, but they found only further humiliation. Garfield\'s victory was complete. He had routed his foes, weakened the principle of senatorial courtesy, and revitalized the presidential office.Garfield, James Abram. American National Biography, 2000, American Council of Learned Societies.
President Garfield\'s only official social function made outside the White House was a visit to the Columbia Institution for the Deaf (later Gallaudet University) in May, 1881.Gallaudet, Edward Miner. History of the Columbia Institution for the Deaf.
Garfield had little time to savor his triumph. He was shot by Charles J. Guiteau, disgruntled by failed efforts to secure a federal post, on July 2, 1881, at 9:30 a.m., less than four months after taking office. The President had been walking through the Sixth Street Station of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad (a predecessor of the Pennsylvania Railroad) Washington, D.C., on his way to his alma mater, Williams College, where he was scheduled to deliver a speech, accompanied by Secretary of State James G. Blaine, Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln and two of his sons, James and Harry. The station was located on the southwest corner of present day Sixth Street Northwest and Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C., a site that is now occupied by the National Gallery of Art. As he was being arrested after the shooting, Guiteau excitedly said, "I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts! I did it and I want to be arrested! Arthur is President now," which briefly led to unfounded suspicions that Arthur or his supporters had put Guiteau up to the crime. (The Stalwarts strongly opposed Garfield\'s Half-Breeds; like many Vice Presidents, Arthur was chosen for political advantage, to placate his faction, rather than for skills or loyalty to his running-mate.) Guiteau was upset because of the rejection of his repeated attempts to be appointed as the United States consul in Paris—a position for which he had absolutely no qualifications. Garfield\'s assassination was instrumental to the passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act on January 16, 1883.
President Garfield with James G. Blaine after being shot by Charles Guiteau, as depicted in a period engraving from Frank Leslie\'s Illustrated NewspaperCheney, Lynne Vincent. "Mrs. Frank Leslie\'s Illustrated Newspaper". American Heritage Magazine. October 1975. Volume 26, Issue 6. URL retrieved on January 24, 2007."The attack on the President\'s life". Library of Congress. URL retrieved on January 24, 2007.
One bullet grazed Garfield\'s arm; the second bullet lodged in his spine and could not be found, although scientists today think that the bullet was near his lung. Alexander Graham Bell devised a metal detector specifically for the purpose of finding the bullet, but the metal bed frame Garfield was lying on made the instrument malfunction. Because metal bed frames were relatively rare, the cause of the instrument\'s deviation was unknown at the time. Garfield became increasingly ill over a period of several weeks due to infection, which caused his heart to weaken. He remained bedridden in the White House with fevers and extreme pains. In early September, the ailing President was moved to the Jersey Shore in the vain hope that the fresh air and quiet there might aid his recovery. He died of a massive heart attack or a ruptured splenic artery aneurysm, following blood poisoning and bronchial pneumonia, at 10:35 p.m. on Monday, September 19, 1881, in the Elberon section of Long Branch, New Jersey. The wounded president died exactly two months before his 50th birthday. During the eighty days between his shooting and death, his only official act was to sign an extradition paper.
Doctors discuss Garfield\'s wounds.
Most historians and medical experts now believe that Garfield probably would have survived his wound had the doctors attending him been more capable.A President Felled by an Assassin and 1880’s Medical Care New York Times, July 25, 2006. Several inserted their unsterilized fingers into the wound to probe for the bullet, and one doctor punctured Garfield\'s liver in doing so. This alone would not have brought about death as the liver is one of the few organs in the human body that can regenerate itself. However, this physician probably introduced Streptococcus bacteria into the President\'s body and that caused blood poisoning for which at that time there were no antibiotics.
Guiteau was found guilty of assassinating Garfield, despite his lawyers raising an insanity defense. He insisted that incompetent medical care had really killed the President. Although historians generally agree that poor medical care was a contributing factor, it was not a legal defense. Guiteau was sentenced to death, and was executed by hanging on June 30, 1882, in Washington, D.C.
Garfield was buried, with great and solemn ceremony, in a mausoleum in Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio. The monument is decorated with five terra cotta bas relief panels by sculptor Caspar Buberl, depicting various stages in Garfield\'s life. In 1887, the James A. Garfield Monument was dedicated in Washington, D.C.
At the time of his death, Garfield was survived by his mother. He is one of only three presidents to have predeceased their mothers. The others were James K. Polk and John F. Kennedy.
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Garfield Monument at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.
Garfield Monument in Washington, D.C.
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| United States House of Representatives | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Albert G. Riddle | Member from Ohio\'s 19th congressional district March 4, 1863 – March 3, 1881 | Succeeded by Ezra B. Taylor |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by Rutherford B. Hayes | President of the United States March 4, 1881 – September 19, 1881 | Succeeded by Chester A. Arthur |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by Rutherford B. Hayes | Republican Party presidential candidate 1880 | Succeeded by James G. Blaine |
| Honorary titles | ||
| Preceded by Henry Wilson | Persons who have lain in state or honor in the United States Capitol rotunda September 21, 1881 – September 23, 1881 | Succeeded by John A. Logan |
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Garfield, James Abram |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | 20th President of the United States |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 19, 1831 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Moreland Hills, Ohio, United States |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 19, 1931 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Elberon (Long Branch), New Jersey, United States |
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