James A. Garfield

President of the United States in 1881

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Lived 1831–1881, aged 50United States

United States PoliticiansPolitician

Wikipedia
129 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1831–1881
Aged 50

Summary

Updated 2026-06-08

Shot four months into his presidency by a man who wanted a government job, Garfield spent eleven weeks dying while doctors probed his wound with unsterilized hands. He's remembered less for what he did than for how infection—not the bullet—killed him.

Biography

About

Born in an Ohio log cabin in 1831, Garfield worked his way from poverty through Williams College, became a preacher and lawyer, then a Union major general who fought at Shiloh and Chickamauga. Elected to Congress in 1862, he served nine terms—the only sitting House member ever chosen for the presidency—and published his own proof of the Pythagorean theorem in 1876. At the 1880 Republican convention, deadlocked delegates picked him as compromise nominee on the 36th ballot; he won the general election and took office in March 1881. He spent his brief tenure battling New York's Senator Roscoe Con…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from James A. Garfield

James A. Garfield

said1880

I would rather be beaten in Right than succeed in Wrong.

— Maxims of James Abram Garfield (1880), compiled by William Ralston Balch, p. 1

James A. Garfield

said1862

We do not even inquire whether a black man is a rebel in arms, or not, if he is black, be he friend or foe, he is thought best kept at a distance.

— Regarding slavery (1862), as quoted in Garfield: A Biography (1978), by Allan Peskin, p. 145

James A. Garfield

said1856

The world's history is a divine poem, of which the history of every nation is a canto, and every man a word.

— The Province of History (c. 1856), Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 620

James A. Garfield

saidundated

Be fit for more than the thing you are now doing. Let everyone know that you have a reserve in yourself,— that you have more power than you are now using.

— "Elements of Success", as published in President Garfield and education: Hiram college memorial (1882), compiled by B. A. Hinsdale, p. 327

James A. Garfield

saidundated

The worst days of darkness through which I have ever passed have been greatly alleviated by throwing myself with all my energy into some work relating to others.

— Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 124

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