🎩James A. Garfield

20th President · 1881 · Republican

James A. Garfield was the only member of the U.S. House of Representatives ever elected directly to the presidency. He was a dark-horse compromise candidate nominated on the 36th ballot of the 1880 Republican convention. He served just 200 days before being shot by a disappointed office-seeker on July 2, 1881, and died 11 weeks later. The outrage over his death led to serious civil service reform.

Self-Made Scholar

Garfield was the last president born in a log cabin. He worked as a canal laborer and carpenter, put himself through Williams College, became a classics professor, and was appointed president of Hiram College in Ohio at 26. He served as a Union general in the Civil War, distinguishing himself at Chickamauga, before entering the U.S. House in 1863 — where he served nine terms.

Dark-Horse Nomination

The 1880 Republican convention was deadlocked between former President Grant and Senator James G. Blaine. Garfield, a Blaine supporter giving a nominating speech, drew enough support that delegates began shifting to him. He was nominated on the 36th ballot — a genuine dark horse. He narrowly defeated Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock in November.

The Assassination

On July 2, 1881, Garfield was shot at a Washington train station by Charles Guiteau, a mentally ill office-seeker who believed Garfield owed him a government job. The bullet lodged in Garfield's abdomen but did not kill him. What killed him was the medical treatment. Doctors probing for the bullet with unsterile fingers and instruments introduced massive infection. Alexander Graham Bell personally tried to locate the bullet with an electromagnetic device he had invented, but the metal springs of Garfield's bed confused the readings. Garfield died of sepsis 79 days after being shot.

Pendleton Act

Public outrage over the political patronage system that had produced Guiteau led to the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883, signed by Garfield's successor Arthur. The law established merit-based hiring for federal positions and is one of Garfield's major legacies, even though he did not live to sign it.

Garfield Trivia

• He is one of only two presidents to recite his inaugural address from memory (with Pierce).
• Garfield was ambidextrous and could reportedly write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other simultaneously.
• He was the first left-handed president — actually, more accurately, the first known ambidextrous president.
• His presidency of 200 days is the second shortest after William Henry Harrison.

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