biography
| name: |
Garfield, James A(bram)
|
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1831–81)
|
| biography:
| US statesman and 20th president (Mar–Sep, 1881), born in Orange, Ohio, USA. Born into poverty, he worked his way up to an education at Williams College, became a lay preacher and a lawyer, and then moved into politics. He served briefly in the Ohio senate (1859–61) before taking a commission in the Civil War, during which he led units with distinction. He left the army to enter the US House of Representatives (1863–80), representing Ohio as a conservative Republican leader. In 1880 he won the presidential nomination as a compromise candidate in a convention torn among several factions, and with his running mate, Chester A Arthur, he won a close election over war hero Winfield Scott Hancock. He then proceeded to outrage many Republicans with his patronage appointments, resulting in his attempted assassination by Charles Guiteau, a deranged office-seeker (Jul 1881). With a bullet in his back, he lingered for 79 days before dying. |
|
|
