James power white pages new york city1/19/2024 ![]() House of Representatives, to which the war hero had been elected the previous November without ever having campaigned. In December 1863, Garfield resigned from the Army to take his seat in the U.S. Rosecrans, commander of the Army of the Cumberland, though he undermined his superior by supplying negative information to the War Department. Garfield served as chief of staff under Major General William S. By then, he was a major general, the youngest officer to hold this rank. In September 1863 at Chickamauga, he made a daring ride under enemy fire. 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 mid-August 1861, Garfield organized the 42nd Ohio Infantry, rising from lieutenant colonel to full colonel within a few weeks. He said, "I am inclined to believe that the sin of slavery is one of which it may be said that without the shedding of blood there is no remission." He welcomed the fall of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, believing it would unite Northern sentiment in support of waging war on the Confederacy. When Southern states began to withdraw from the Union, Garfield came out strongly against secession and urged the federal government to respond with force. Although he did not condone John Brown's bloody raid on Harpers Ferry, he believed that Brown's trial and execution would "be the dawn of a better day." In the presidential election of 1860, Garfield campaigned for Abraham Lincoln. Three years later, he threw himself into state politics, becoming the youngest member of the Ohio legislature.Īn enthusiastic abolitionist, Garfield believed that under no circumstances could the institution of slavery be allowed to extend into any of the western territories. Frémont, presidential candidate of the newly formed Republican Party. In 1856, Garfield campaigned in Ohio for John C. Studying law on his own, he passed the Ohio bar exam in 1861. From 1857 to 1861, he served as president of the institute, though he found the faculty bickering intolerable. By this time, he was a Disciples minister. Though formally an instructor in classical languages, he taught a wide variety of courses, including English, history, geology, and mathematics. ![]() While Garfield finished his studies at Williams, she taught school.Īfter graduating from Williams with honors in 1856, Garfield returned to the Eclectic Institute. An attractive young lady, she possessed a keen intellect and equaled Garfield in her appetite for knowledge. Garfield eventually fell in love with Lucretia "Crete" Rudolph, one of his classmates at the Eclectic Institute. He also enjoyed the ladies, dating three young women simultaneously. ![]() Though a serious student, James enjoyed hunting, fishing, billiards, and drink in moderation, refusing to take the temperance pledge or to join in its cause. He fancied himself a reformer, identifying with the antislavery beliefs of the new Republican Party. ![]() He relished the opportunity to hear Ralph Waldo Emerson and the challenge of confronting the strong personality of Williams's president, Mark Hopkins. In 1850, at age eighteen, Garfield experienced a religious conversion and was baptized into the denomination of his parents, the Disciples of Christ. In 1854, at the age of twenty-three, James entered Williams College in western Massachusetts as a junior he was one of the oldest students enrolled in this institution. From 1851 to 1854, he studied at the Eclectic Institute in Hiram, Ohio, and earned his living as a school janitor. He supported himself with a part-time teaching position at a district school. Education, Early Career, and Civil War Serviceĭetermined to succeed, Garfield worked as a carpenter and part-time teacher while attending Geauga Academy, located in Chester, Ohio. While recovering, Garfield vowed to make his way in the world using brains rather than brawn. During his six weeks on the boats, he fell overboard fourteen times, finally catching such a fever that he had to return home. At age sixteen, Garfield ran away to work on the canal boats that shuttled commerce between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Like his father, James was good with his fists and loved the outdoors, but he never liked farming. He never knew his father, Abram Garfield, a strong man known for his wrestling abilities, who had died when James was scarcely an infant. ![]() He spent his youth helping his near penniless, widowed mother, Eliza, work her farm outside of Cleveland, Ohio. The youngest of three living children, James Abram Garfield was born on November 19, 1831, on a frontier farm in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. ![]()
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