JAMES GARFIELD
Biography
James A. Garfield served as President of the United States for only a little more than six months. On July 2, 1881, less than four months after taking office, Garfield was shot as he waited for a train at a Washington, D.C., railroad station. He died on September 19, 1881, becoming the fourth U.S. president to die while in office. It was a tragic end to the career of a man who had risen from a boyhood of poverty to become a college president, state senator, Civil War general, U.S. congressman, and finally president of the United States.
College President and Ohio Senator
After graduation, from Williams College, in Williamstown, Massachusetts with honors in 1856, Garfield returned to teach at the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (now Hiram College, in Hiram, Ohio), the school he attended before Williams. A year later, when he was only 26, he became president of the school. While he was teaching, Garfield studied law. He became interested in politics and spoke out about the problems facing the country at the time. The 1850's were years of bitter dispute between the North and South over the question of slavery and states' rights. Garfield joined the Republican Party, which had been founded in 1854 in opposition to the expansion of slavery into the western territories of the United States. In 1859 he was elected to the Ohio Senate. There he denounced slavery and called for the preservation of the Union.
These were busy years for Garfield. Besides his other duties, he was a preacher in the Disciples of Christ Church. In 1858 he married Lucretia Rudolph. “Crete,”as he called her, had been his childhood friend, a fellow student, and pupil. The Garfields had seven children in all, of whom two died as infants.
Civil War Service
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Garfield volunteered for the Union Army. He received a commission as lieutenant colonel and helped raise a regiment of Ohio volunteers. Many of the men were his old students. Garfield had no military experience, but he was willing to learn. He studied military textbooks, and he drilled his men with a textbook in one hand.
In December 1861, Garfield was given command of a brigade in Kentucky. He was ordered to attack the Confederate forces under General Humphrey Marshall, an experienced soldier. At the battle of Middle Creek he defeated Marshall and forced him to retreat from Kentucky. It was not a great victory, but it was welcome news in the North, for up to this time the Union Army had won few victories. Garfield was promoted to brigadier general and fought at the bloody battle of Shiloh in Tennessee.
While his military reputation was growing Garfield became ill and had to leave the field. But he was soon active again as chief of staff to General William S. Rosecrans. He fought at Chickamauga in Georgia and for his courage and leadership was promoted to major general.
Congressman
In 1862, while still in the Army, Garfield was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. He remained in the Army until December 1863, when he resigned his commission and took his seat in Congress.
Garfield served in the House of Representatives for 17 years, including a period as House minority leader. He was particularly interested in matters affecting the freed blacks in the South and in education.
The Crédit Mobilier Scandal
In 1872, during the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant, Garfield became involved in the scandal of the Crédit Mobilier, a railroad construction company. Garfield and other politicians, including former Vice President Schuyler Colfax, were accused of having taken bribes from the company in exchange for political favors. Garfield denied the charge, which was never proved. But some Republicans demanded that he resign from Congress. Garfield, however, made a tour through the villages of his Ohio district, defending his conduct to the satisfaction of voters.
Compromise Candidate
In 1880, Garfield was elected to the U.S. Senate. Before he could take his seat, however, he unexpectedly won the Republican presidential nomination.
In 1880 the Republicans met in Chicago to pick a candidate for president to succeed Rutherford B. Hayes. The two great rivals for the nomination were former President Grant and Senator James G. Blaine of Maine. Grant was backed by a group of Republicans known as the Stalwarts, led by Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York. Blaine was supported by a group called the Half-Breeds.
At the Chicago convention the Grant and Blaine forces were deadlocked. Finally Blaine decided to give his support to Garfield, who had impressed the delegates with his speeches. On the 36th ballot, Garfield was nominated as the candidate for president. Chester A. Arthur, a Conkling supporter, received the nomination for vice president.
During the election campaign, the old Crédit Mobilier scandal came back to haunt Garfield. The number 329 (he was charged with having received $329 from the company) was carried on posters, painted on walls and windows, and printed in newspaper headlines by his opponents. The election was very close. Garfield beat his Democratic opponent, General Winfield Scott Hancock, by fewer than 10,000 popular votes. But he received 369 electoral votes to Hancock's 155.
President
Garfield began his administration as the head of a divided party. He had offended the powerful Senator Conkling by appointing Blaine, a Half-Breed, to the post of secretary of state. Other Half-Breeds were given important government jobs, while the Stalwarts generally received only minor posts. Their dispute became worse when Garfield appointed William H. Robertson, Conkling's worst political enemy, collector of customs for New York.
At the time, a more serious situation faced the president. Certain post office officials were accused of cheating the government on western mail routes. These were the so-called Star Route frauds. The men were brought to trial. But before the case could continue, the nation was shocked by the news that President Garfield had been shot.
The Assassination
On the morning of July 2, 1881, Garfield, accompanied by Secretary of State Blaine, was preparing to leave Washington to visit Williams College. As they waited at the Washington railroad station, a man approached Garfield from behind and shot him twice. The man, Charles J. Guiteau, was a Stalwart who had been refused a government post.
Garfield was nursed at the White House and then at a summer resort cottage at Elberon, New Jersey, where his family was staying. He died at Elberon and was buried in Cleveland, Ohio. Vice President Chester A. Arthur succeeded to the presidency. Guiteau was arrested and tried for murder. He was convicted and hanged in 1882, even though many people thought he was insane.
An Aroused Nation
Garfield's friends collected a large sum of money to help the president's widow and her five children. One of their sons, James R. Garfield, later became secretary of the interior under President Theodore Roosevelt. A second son, Harry A. Garfield, became president of Williams College.
Garfield became president at a time when there was a great need for reform in politics. Although his tragic death cut short a promising political career, it aroused the nation to the necessity for such reform. The murdered president became a symbol of this need to the people of the United States and to the presidents who followed him.
Reviewed by Richard B. Morris
Columbia University, Editor, Encyclopedia of American History