Profile of President James A. Garfield

James A. Garfield was the 20th President of the United States (1881). His presidency is one of the greatest "what-ifs" in American history, lasting just 200 days before he was tragically assassinated. He is the only sitting member of the United States House of Representatives to be elected directly to the presidency. The Accidental Nominee: Garfield did not want to be President. At the 1880 Republican National Convention, he delivered such a brilliant nominating speech for another candidate that the deadlocked convention unexpectedly drafted Garfield himself, nominating him on the 36th ballot. The War on the Spoils System: During his brief time in office, Garfield fiercely defended the power of the presidency against the corrupt "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling, successfully dismantling their control over the lucrative New York Custom House. The Assassination: On July 2, 1881, Garfield was shot at a Washington D.C. train station by Charles J. Guiteau, a delusional and disgruntled office seeker who believed he was personally owed a government job in Paris. A Medical Tragedy: Garfield survived the initial shooting. He agonized for 79 days and ultimately died not from the bullet, but from massive infections caused by his incompetent doctors—led by Dr. Willard Bliss—who repeatedly probed his unsterilized wounds with unwashed fingers and instruments. "He was a brilliant scholar, a battlefield general, and a reluctant president. James A. Garfield's assassination robbed the nation of one of its most capable leaders, dying not from an assassin's bullet, but from the hubris of modern medicine." Day 67 | James A. Garfield: The Tragedy of the 20th President James A. Garfield possessed one of the most brilliant, intellectually gifted minds ever to occupy the Oval Office. Born in 1831 in a genuine log cabin in poverty-stricken rural Ohio, his father died when he was just an infant. Raised by his fierce, determined mother, Garfield developed an insatiable appetite for reading. He worked as a canal boy to earn money for school, eventually attending Williams College. By his mid-twenties, he was a classics professor and the president of the Eclectic Institute (now Hiram College). A legendary—if slightly mythologized—anecdote claims that Garfield was perfectly ambidextrous and could simultaneously write Greek with one hand and Latin with the other. When the Civil War began, Garfield proved his brilliance extended to the battlefield. Having no formal military training, he studied textbooks on strategy and was quickly promoted to Major General in the Union Army, serving with distinction at the battles of Shiloh and Chickamauga. At the explicit urging of President Abraham Lincoln, who desperately needed pro-Union military minds in Congress, Garfield left the army to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. Over the next 18 years, he became the leading Republican intellectual in the House. The election of 1880 propelled him to the presidency completely by accident. The Republican Party was deeply fractured between the "Stalwarts" (who wanted a third term for Ulysses S. Grant and fiercely protected the corrupt patronage system) and the "Half-Breeds" (who supported James G. Blaine and favored civil service reform). Garfield went to the convention to support a third candidate, John Sherman. When Garfield gave a soaring, unifying speech on Sherman's behalf, the deadlocked delegates were so captivated that they began voting for Garfield instead. Despite his protests, he was nominated on the 36th ballot. Winning a narrow general election, Garfield took office in March 1881. He immediately went to war to protect the constitutional authority of the presidency. Senator Roscoe Conkling, the powerful boss of the New York political machine, demanded the right to control the lucrative appointments at the N...