Full Name:
- James Abram Garfield
Birth Date:
- November 19, 1831
Birth Location:
- Orange Township, Ohio, near Cleveland
Parents:
- Abram and Eliza (Ballou) Garfield
Education:
- Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (later Hiram College) (1851 – 1854)
- Williams College in Massachusetts (1854 – 1856)
Occupation:
- College professor
- School administrator
- Lawyer
- Military officer
- Politician
Career Summary:
- Brigadier general (USVA)
- U.S. Congressman
- U.S. Senator
- 20th U.S. President
Spouse:
- Lucretia Rudolph (1858)
Nickname(s):
- Boatman Jim
Place of Death:
- Elberon, New Jersey
Date of Death:
- September 19, 1881
Place of Burial:
- Lake View Cemetery, Cleveland, Ohio
Significance:
- James Abram Garfield was born on November 19, 1831, in a log cabin in Orange Township, Ohio, near Cleveland.
- James Garfield was the last U. S. President born in a log cabin.
- James Garfield’s father died at the age of thirty-three, when Garfield was 17 months old.
- After James Garfield’s father died, Garfield’s mother raised the family by managing the family farm.
- As a teenager, James Garfield briefly worked as a helmsman on the Ohio Canal.
- James Garfield attended the Geauga Academy in 1849.
- James Garfield attended the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (later Hiram College) from 1851 to 1854.
- James Garfield attended Williams College in Massachusetts from 1854 to 1856, graduating with honors.
- James Garfield served as a professor of ancient languages at the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute from 1856 to 1857.
- James Garfield served as a principal of the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute from 1857 to 1860.
- James Garfield married Lucretia Rudolph on November 11, 1858.
- James Garfield began to study law in 1858 and was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1860.
- James Garfield was elected as a Republican to the Ohio Senate in 1859, serving until 1861.
- James Garfield was commissioned as a colonel and commander of the 42nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the summer of 1861.
- In the autumn of 1862, Major General Don Carlos Buell placed James Garfield in charge of the 18th Brigade and ordered him to clear Confederate forces from eastern Kentucky.
- On January 10, 1862, Colonel James Garfield defeated Confederate Brigadier General Humphrey Marshall at the Battle of Middle Creek, in Kentucky.
- James Garfield was promoted to the rank of brigadier general on January 11, 1862.
- James Garfield commanded the 20th Brigade of Ohio at the Battle of Shiloh (April 6 – 7, 1862).
- James Garfield served under Major General Thomas Wood during the Siege of Corinth (April 29 – May 30, 1862).
- James Garfield suffered an illness during the summer of 1863 and returned home on leave to recuperate.
- James Garfield was named as Major General William S. Rosecrans’ chief-of-staff in the spring of 1863.
- Although he did not actively campaign, James Garfield was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1862, while he was serving in the field with the Union army.
- James Garfield was promoted to major general on September 19, 1863 for gallantry at the Battle of Chickamauga (September 19 -20, 1863).
- James Garfield resigned his commission in the United States Army in December 1863.
- James Garfield took his seat in the House of Representatives in December 1863.
- Upon joining the United States House of Representatives in 1863, James Garfield became aligned with Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase and other Radical Republicans.
- James Garfield served the House of Representatives from December 1863 through March 3, 1881.
- The Ohio Senate elected James Garfield to the United States Senate on January 13, 1880, but Garfield never served because he was elected to the presidency later that same year.
- On June 8, 1880, after 36 ballots, delegates to the Republican National Convention in Chicago selected James Garfield as their nominee for the 1880 presidential election.
- James Garfield conducted the first “front porch campaign” for the U.S. presidency from his home in Mentor, Ohio during the summer and autumn of 1880.
- James Garfield was elected to the U.S. presidency on November 2, 1880, winning a close contest against fellow Union Civil War General Winfield Scott Hancock.
- James Garfield was inaugurated as President of the United States on March 4, 1881.
- At 9:30 a.m. on July 2, 1881, Charles Guiteau, a deranged office-seeker, shot President Garfield twice at the Sixth Street Station of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad in Washington D.C.
- After being shot on July 2, 1881, President Garfield died from complications caused by his wounds on September 19, at Elberon, New Jersey.
- James Abram Garfield was buried at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland.
- In 1890, President Garfield’s remains were moved to the newly-erected Garfield Memorial in Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland.