James Garfield the 20th POTUS was born on this day in 1831.

Ten Notes on President James Garfield

1. James Garfield was the second of four American presidents to be assassinated- Abraham Lincoln/James Garfield/William McKinley/John Kennedy. Garfield’s assassin was a nutcase named Charles Guiteau who had unsuccessfully sought to be appointed to office.He wanted to be named Ambassador to France. He thought God commanded him to kill Garfield. Guiteau had the assassination planned out so well that he even visited the Washington D.C. jail beforehand to see if it met his approval. He also had a cab waiting to take him off to jail after she shot Garfield in the hope of avoiding an angry mob getting him. The assassination took place at the Baltimore and Potomac train station in Washington D.C. The National Art Museum is there now. There isn’t even a plaque in the area.

2. James Garfield was the first left handed POTUS. 5 of the last 7 presidents have been left-handed.

3. James Garfield was born poor in a log cabin in Ohio. He was a real log cabin president not a fake one like William Henry Harrison. He was the last POTUS born in a log cabin. Garfield was a remarkable man. Until reading “Destiny of the Republic” recently I knew the basic facts about the man, knew some about the assassination but didn’t know much about the man. He was a self-made man, highly intelligent, a gentleman and a scholar. I couldn’t help but think had he not died after only 6 months in office that he may have been a pretty good president. Garfield was highly thought of at the time.

4. After being shot he lingered on for nearly 3 months. If this had happened today he no doubt would have lived and would have recovered quickly from his wounds. His doctors in a way killed him. He died of infections. After he was shot they were looking for the bullet and sticking fingers and probes into him looking for the bullet. This led to infections. At first the reports were hopeful that he would recover. He spend most of his remaining days in the White House. Towards the end they moved him out of the White House to the Jersey Shore where he would die. Thoughout the entire period from the time he was shot until he died he was still the same man he had always been. He treated the people attending him well, he didn’t complain, he was a model patient. Garfield was a bear of a man, by the time of his death he had lost nearly half of his weight, he was down below 130 pounds and didn’t look at all like the person he had been just a few months earlier.

5.James Garfield was 6 foot tall, 210 pounds, reddish-brown hair. Before his career in politics he was a teacher and a minister. He volunteered for the Civil War and rose to the rank of major general. The political offices he held were Ohio State Senate in 1859, U.S. House of Representatives 1863-1880 and he was a member of the United States Senate in 1881 before being elected POTUS.

6. James Garfield won the 1800 Presidential Election by defeating the Democratic candidate Winfield Scott Hancock one of the Union heroes during the Civil War. Garfield won the electoral vote 214 to 155 for Hancock. Each man carried 19 states each and Garfield won the popular vote by fewer than 2000 votes.  Garfield’s Vice Daddy was Chester Alan Arthur a man who had never held any political elected office. Back then the candidates didn’t select their Vice Daddy’s the party bigwigs did.

7. Lucretia Garfield, James Garfield’s wife and briefly the First Lady was about as different in personality from her husband as you could get. Where Garfield was open and friendly towards everyone even his enemies “Crete” was very private and quiet. After Garfield’s death she did a remarkable job raising her children, they all turned out to be very successful adults.

8. During a seven year period Garfield did the following things- he went from being a college president to a state senator to being a major general in the Army during the Civil War to being a member of the US House of Representatives.

9. Robert Todd Lincoln the son of Abraham Lincoln was the Secretary of War for Garfield. He was there when Garfield was shot. Robert Lincoln was with his father when he died at the hands of an assassin, he was there when Garfield was shot and he would be with William McKinley when he was assassinated. After that Lincoln turned down invitations to appear in public with POTUS. Of course he was long gone by the time JFK was assassinated.

10.Garfield was a Dark Horse at the 1880 Republican Convention. The convention was deadlocked on a candidate and ended up choosing Garfield on the thirty-sixth ballot against his protests. He didn’t want the job.