Happy Birthday to our 20th president, James Abram Garfield! I don't know about you, but I can't think "James Garfield" without following it with "someone really hated, cuz he was assassinated" from the Animaniacs president song. Have I never linked to that before? How is that possible.
Anyway, we've had some crappy weather today, and my head is killing me, so I'm going to try and make this as short and sweet as possible. If you want more James Garfield, you can always watch his president in 60 seconds. He's an easy one for me to remember because he falls in the three presidents stretch of Ohio Republicans who fought in the Civil War (right behind Grant and Hayes).
James Abram Garfield was born in Orange, Ohio (near Cleveland) on November 19, 1831. He was the baby of Eliza and Abram, the last of five. He was actually named for an older brother who died in infancy.
Not much is known about Abram, because James himself never knew all that much about his father- because his dad died when he was only a toddler.
James was the last of six (or seven-depending on who you ask) president's born in a log cabin.
And with Abram gone, the family was super poor. Eliza did what she could to earn money, but it was tough to make ends meet. Many historians believe he had the poorest upbringing of any president. So poor in fact he was 19 before he heard a piano, and 23 before he ate a banana.
James was also a huge momma's boy, who loved reading (adventure books in particular). His nerdy, poor, fatherless status made him an easy target for school yard bullies.
The family was also quite religious- and James eventually would become a preacher (the only ordained minister to be president).
The initial picture of our 20th president is a pansy, wimpy, sad one. But that's actually pretty far from the truth.
The only thing James knew about his dad, was he was an accomplished wrestler, so James learned how to defend himself from those school yard bullies, even earning himself the nickname "the fighting kid".
As a workout, James would juggle Indian Clubs. Which, sounds whimsical and fun, until you learn that Indian Clubs are large, wooden, bowling pin shaped pieces of wood that weigh 50 pounds.
James had long dreamt of a life at sea, and as a teenager he ended up working on pocket boats along the Erie Canal. James was in charge of the mules. If you're thinking what do mules have to do with boats... Well, apparently the mules would be tied to the boats, and walk along the land while pulling the boats. I had to google it to figure out how that all lined up. However, James had it rough. In the first six months on the canal, he fell overboard 14 times. And he couldn't swim.
James had earned enough money to go to college, and with his mother's encouragement he enrolled in Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (now know as Hiram College) in Ohio. At school he proved to be a really good student. He liked Latin and Greek, but really was inclined to learn about and discuss any new thing he encountered, devouring education the way he devoured his adventure books as a child.
At school, James met Lucretia Rudolph. Crete, as her friends called her, was kind of plain, but she was smart and James was charming, and the two fell in love.
James, while at school, became a regular on the preaching circuit, earning some cash for his services.
...and he also began teaching.
But James felt he had outgrown his school, so he went off to Williams College for his last two years.
There he was hired to teach penmanship to the students in nearby Pownal, Vermont- a post that previously belonged to one, Chester A. Arthur. At school, James became more political aware in the intensely anti-slavery atmosphere, and began to consider a career in politics.
James graduated salutatorian. His years in Massachusetts gave James the opportunity to know and respect people from different social backgrounds, and despite his origin as an unsophisticated westerner, he was like and respected by the socially conscious New Englanders.
He returned to Ohio, married Crete and had five kids: Harry, James, Mollie, Irvin, and Abram.
And he started teaching at his first college.
Even after college, James Garfield couldn't get enough of education and learning. He loved to meet with writers, engineers, and intellects just to sit quietly and learn from them. James had a lot going for him. He could have been a great success in so many different areas: the presidency, public speaking, English, Latin, Greek, Science, or Math. The dude even wrote a proof of the Pythagorean Theorem (something about a trapezoid).
But James chose politics. He started out in the state legislature.
...though when the Civil War broke out, he joined the war efforts. Garfield, a Republican and Abe Lincoln fan boy, regarded the war as a "holy crusade against slave power."
He rose through the ranks, and fought in the battles of Middle Creek, Shiloh and Chickamauga. But he also suffered from jaundice and significant weight loss. He was forced back home where Crete nursed him back to health.
But instead of heading back out to the battlefield, Mr. Lincoln wanted James in Washington.
He thought James would be of better service in the House of Representatives than in the army. James won a seat, where he served for the next 17 years.
He served on important committees and was well respected. But, his career was not without it's challenges. In a political period marked by scandal and corruption, James's ethics were called into question when he was accused (but never found guilty), of one of the scandals of the Sam Grant administration. (It was the Credit Mobilier scandal of 1872, if you're looking for specifics. It involved taking bribes for the transcontinental railroad.)
James was also dealing with factions in the Republican Party. He was a Moderate, a Half-Breed. Half-Breeds were moving toward Progressivism, and wanted to see an end to the spoils system of Andrew Jackson's day. On the other side, the Stalwarts were conservative, old-school Republicans who believed in the spoils system.
And riding the line in the middle was especially difficult when he served on the congressional committee charged with settled the disputed presidential election of 1876. (You know, that little Sam Tilden, Rutherford Hayes dabocle.)
A couple of things about the election of 1880. First off, Rutherford Hayes was stepping down. One term was enough for him. Second, James Garfield had his sights set on a Senate seat, but the Republican leadership had other ideas, and James emerged as their nominee for president.
He won in a nail-biter (by only 10,000 popular votes), but he also won in the Senate Race. Making him the only American in history to be a U.S. Representative, a Senate Elect and a President-elect all at the same time.
At 49 years old, James Garfield was sworn in as our 20th president. To date, he is the only sitting member of the House of Representatives to be elected President of the United States. He was the end of a three president stretch of war heroes from Ohio.
It's also fitting that our momma's boy was the first president who had their mother attend their inauguration.
James Garfield is also our first left-handed president. Though, in fact he was ambidextrous. Apparently he could write in Greek with one hand, and Latin in the other- at the same time!
The new president vowed to fight corruption. He wanted to make the White House strong again- like it had been in the Lincoln days. Of course, he had an ironic Vice President for that, in Chester Arthur, but James was a half-breed, and Chester was a Stalwart, so it made sense to team up (no matter what shady dealings occurred). I mean, we all know if you split the Republican party with two candidates, you're not going to win. Teddy and Taft can tell you that.
President Garfield's election brought a cheerful young family to the White House.
And while Crete was't particularly interested in the social duties of the First Lady, she was hospitable, and made her dinners and twice weekly receptions enjoyable. I mean, it helped she wasn't Lemonade Lucy, and she brought alcohol back into the White House. (Though her and James didn't drink).
Unfortunately, a few months into her husbands presidency, Crete caught malaria an had to leave Washington (in favor of a sea side cottage in New Jersey) to recover.
As soon as James was elected, he was hit with the usual storm of office seekers (aka corrupt jerks) who wanted cushy government jobs and power. James, perhaps remembering the bullies who tried to push him around when he was a kid, was not having it.
He pioneered the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, which would eventually pass and make it a law that all government jobs be granted on the basis of merit, and merit alone. He refused to give in to the Senate oer political appointments. Two Senators resigned, thinking it would make James look bad, and they would get their jobs back. It didn't quite work out that way for them.
While he did manage to make a dent in the corrupt spoils system, it might have been his crusde to end corruption that killed him just 200 days after becoming president.
Charles Guiteau, a writer-turned-preacher-turned-lawyer-turned lunatic, believed he was personally responsible for President Garfield's victory.
Why? Because he gave a speech in support of James Garfiled, which clearly got him elected. (Never mind the fact nearly nobody heard the speech that he had originally written for Grant). And he deserved to be Ambassador to France because of his support.
When that didn't happen, Charles Guiteau showed up at the Washington D.C. train station on July 2, 1881, where James Garfield was getting ready to board a train and shot him, twice. (Fun fact: among those with James Garfield at the train station was Robert Todd Lincoln, who 16 years earlier watched his father die from an assassins bullet).
Guiteau yelled "I am Stalwart. Arthur is now president", or something like that. So, let the conspiracies continue. That's some shady stuff. He was captured immediately, and hung the next year). James, meanwhile, went off to the hospital.
In today's world, Jaames Garfield probably would have had a full recovery, and been home from the hospital in a couple of days. But, in 1881, doctors weren't as smart. They tried to locate the bullet with Alexander Graham Bell's newest invention: the metal detector. The detector would go off, and doctors would start digging. What they didn't realize, was Garfiled was on a bed with metal springs, and that's why the detector was going off. All that digging for a bullet they couldn't find led to a punctured liver and an infection for James Garfield.
He was starting to recover, he never walked again, but he sat up in bed a few times to write. He was given milk from a cow on the White House lawn (which he loved), and oatmeal (which he detested- when told about Sitting Bull's hunger strike, Garfield said "Let him starve," then said "Oh no, send him my oatmeal). The first successful air conditioning until was also used to make him more comfortable. But, he took a turn for the worse. He was sent on a train to New Jersey, where he could lie in a bed looking out to the ocean, at the same cottage Crete recovered at. But there was no recovering for James Garfield. He died on September 19, making him the second president to be assassinated.
And Chester Arthur was sworn in as the 21st president.
Only two times in history has one year since 3 different presidents.
1841- Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, and John Tyler
and
1881- Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, and Chester Arthur.
James Garfield made just one executive order in his role as president: granting government workers May 30, 1881 as a non-working day, a day to decorate and honor the graves of those who died fighting in the Civil War. Later the idea of Decoration Day would be made into Memorial Day.
James Garfield was taken by train back to Washington D.C. and then onto Cleveland, where he was buried. (We've been there!) And the country mourned. He was a beloved president who was seen as the ultimate American success story: even the poorest of boys could someday become President of the United States.
But, the reality is, James Garfield's presidency was cut so short (the shortest, second only to William Henry Harrison) that most historians don't even include him in presidential rankings. There's just not enough information to figure out his legacy even if his presidency saw a promising start before an untimely end.
There's not any big monuments to our 20th president, but his spine, showing the bullet hole has been preserved and is kept by the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington D.C.
The boys did their owl mail, and we added our famous quote...
...presidential issues...
...and fun facts...
...to our James Garfield tomb stone.
Calib and Peyton also decided to write their birthday cards using their left hands, in a nod to our first left-handed president.
Since we've now done all four president's to be assassinated (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy), our activity today was a 'Find the Assassin' game I made up.
Strips of paper with the assassins names were hidden all over the family room. The boys had 45 seconds after I asked a question about an assassin to find the correct name and bring it back to the counter.
I wish the pictures could show how fun this game was. Asa and I hid the names under couch cushions, the rugs, toy buckets. It was super fun to watch.
So As for his favorite foods, we have milk, homemade bread, parsnips, apple pie and squirrel soup. Obviously, the squirrel soup was out- so there wasn't much to go on. I did take some help from the store on this one though.
We decided to get the fresh bread from Publix and make sandwiches for lunch on that today. We intended to put parsnips in a low country boil for dinner, but Target didn't have any. The apple pie is cooling, so we're looking forward to that.
Calib took six pictures of the hashtag, and this is the best one (by far, you guys... by far!)
That's it for James Garfield. But you know what's crazy, there's only FIVE president's left. I can count them on one hand, and I'm totally excited about it. We have two next week, and by Thanksgiving we'll be down to three. So exciting!
Next Up: I'll be back tomorrow or Saturday to fill you in on our weekend in New Orleans. We had tons of fun, and Asa even came along. I have LOTS of pictures to post from our travels!
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