James was the youngest of three children, James Abram Garfield was born on a
frontier farm in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. He spent his youth helping his near penniless, widowed
mother, Eliza, work her farm outside of Cleveland, Ohio. He never knew his father, Abram
Garfield, a strong man known for his wrestling abilities, who had died when James was an infant.
Like his father, James was good with his fists and loved the outdoors, but he never
liked farming. He dreamed of becoming a sailor. At sixteen years old, Garfield ran away to
work on the canal boats that shuttled commerce between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. During his
six weeks on the boats, he fell overboard fourteen times, finally catching such a fever that
he had to return home. While recovering, Garfield vowed to make his way in the world using
his brains instead of his muscles.
James was determined to succeed, and he worked as a carpenter and part-time teacher while attending
Geauga Academy in Chester, Ohio. He supported himself with a part-time teaching
position at a district school. From 1851 to 1854, he studied at the Eclectic Institute in
Hiram, Ohio. While at Hiram he earned his living as a school janitor. In 1854, at the age of twenty-three,
he entered Williams College in western Massachusetts. He was one of the oldest
students enrolled in that institution.
When Garfield was eighteen years old, he experienced a religious conversion and was baptized into the
denomination of his parents. He enjoyed hearing Ralph Waldo Emerson and the challenge of confronting the
president of Williams's university, Mark Hopkins. He considered himself a reformer,
and identified with the antislavery beliefs of the new Republican Party.
James was a serious student, but he also enjoyed hunting, fishing, billiards, and drink in moderation,
and refused to join in the temperance movement. He also enjoyed the ladies and eventually fell in love
with Lucretia Rudolph who was one of his classmates
at the Eclectic Institute. She possessed a keen intellect and had an appetite for knowledge.
While Garfield finished his studies at Williams, she taught school.
After graduating from Williams with honors in 1856, Garfield returned to the Eclectic Institute.
James taught a wide variety of courses,
including English, history, geology, and mathematics. By this time, he was a Disciples minister.
From 1857 to 1861, he served as president of the institute. Studying law on his own, he passed the Ohio bar
exam in 1861.
In 1856, Garfield campaigned in Ohio for John C. Frémont who was the presidential candidate of the newly
formed Republican Party. Three years later, he went into state politics, becoming
the youngest member of the Ohio legislature.
Garfield believed that under no circumstances could the institution of slavery be allowed to
extend into any of the western territories. In the presidential election of 1860, Garfield
campaigned for Abraham Lincoln. When Southern states began to withdraw from the Union,
Garfield came out strongly against
secession and urged the federal government to respond with force. He welcomed the fall of
Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, believing it would unite Northern sentiment in support
of waging war on the Confederacy.
In 1861, Garfield organized the 42nd Ohio Infantry, rising from lieutenant colonel to full
colonel within a few weeks. Twice he gained distinction: In January 1862 at the battle of Middle
Creek, his greatly outnumbered brigade defeated the Confederates, thereby leaving him in control
of eastern Kentucky. In September 1863 at Chickamauga, he made a daring ride under enemy fire.
By then, he was a major general, the youngest officer to hold this rank. Garfield served as
chief of staff under Major General William S. Rosecrans, commander of the Army of the Cumberland.
In 1863, Garfield resigned from the Army to take his seat in the U.S. House of
Representatives, to which he had been elected the previous November without ever campaigning.
Garfield distinguished himself as one of the most radical Republicans in Congress.
He had campaigned for Lincoln, but he never liked the President and considered
him a "second-rate Illinois lawyer" who had failed to vigorously prosecute the war.
Garfield supported the seizure of rebel property in the North and the execution or
exile of Confederate leaders. In the election of 1864, while campaigning for reelection,
he seldom mentioned the President.
During his eight terms of office, Congressman Garfield tempered his youthful
radicalism, becoming a seasoned politician. He developed an ability to work for compromise
while still defending the core interests of his Western Reserve constituency. During Reconstruction,
Garfield differed from his more radical colleagues, often supporting moderation toward the
defeated South. However, he eventually voted for the impeachment of President Johnson.
In 1868 and 1872, he backed Ulysses S. Grant for President.
In the presidential election of 1876, Garfield supported Ohio's governor, Rutherford B. Hayes,
for President. Garfield served on the electoral commission that
investigated the disputed electoral college returns from South Carolina, Louisiana, Florida,
and Oregon. Garfield worked behind the scenes in support of
the Compromise of 1877, which ended military occupation of the South and brought at least
one southern Democrat into Hayes's cabinet.
During Hayes's administration, Garfield served as the Republican minority leader of the House,
earning a reputation as a political strategist able to achieve compromise among the various
factions within the party. One group of Republicans rallied around
Senator Conkling of New York, who concentrated on a harsh southern policy and sought the return of
Ulysses S. Grant to the White House.
In the election of 1880, the Republican ticket came down to a fight between
former President Ulysses S. Grant and the more moderate James G. Blaine. Garfield earned an
ever-increasing number of votes in the convention balloting. He won the
presidential nomination and eventually the election against Democrat Winfield S. Hancock. Hancock was
a Union general who made his mark at Gettysburg. The election was the closest on record. If New York
had gone Democratic, Garfield would have lost the presidency.
James and Lucretia Garfield were devout members of a relatively new Protestant denomination,
the Disciples of Christ. She devoted herself to raising the Garfield's five children,
all of whom grew up to have distinguished careers. Though she dreamed of refurbishing
the executive mansion, Mrs. Garfield caught malaria from the swamps behind the White
House before she could begin the project. She had a complete recovery
and lived to be eighty-six years old.
Garfield was struck down four months into his term. Garfield was assassinated by
Charles Julius Guiteau, an emotionally disturbed man who had failed to gain an appointment
in Garfield's administration. Garfield had time to appoint his cabinet, and refused to cave in
to Stalwart pressure. Garfield supported education for black southerners and called for
African American suffrage, as he stressed in his inaugural address. He is best
remembered for his assassination. Although his killer was insane, Garfield's greatest
legacy was the impact of his death on moving the nation to reform government patronage.
