US Presidents · 19th century

James A. Garfield

1831–1881 · American

Republican

In office: 1881

James A. Garfield, an Ohio congressman and former Union general, was a dark-horse Republican nominee who became the 20th president in March 1881. Four months later he was shot by Charles Guiteau, a disappointed office-seeker, and he died in September after doctors failed to find the bullet. His assassination spurred the Pendleton Act reforming the federal civil service.

How to spot them

▸Shot in July 1881 at a Washington railway station by Charles Guiteau; died that September
▸Alexander Graham Bell tried to locate the bullet with an electrical metal detector
▸The last president born in a log cabin; nominated on the 36th ballot in 1880
▸Published an original proof of Pythagoras' theorem

In office

Assassination by Charles Guiteau (1881)

Shot on 2 July at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station, Washington; died 19 September

Dark-horse nomination on the 36th ballot (1880)

A compromise candidate at a deadlocked Republican convention

Star Route postal scandal investigation (1881)

Backed an inquiry into fraudulent mail-route contracts

Proof of the Pythagorean theorem using a trapezoid (1876)

Published while he was a congressman

Quick-fire facts

•The 20th President of the United States; served about 200 days
•The second president to be assassinated, after Lincoln
•Guiteau was a deluded office-seeker who believed he deserved a diplomatic post
•The only sitting member of the House of Representatives to be elected president
•Died at Elberon (Long Branch), New Jersey; succeeded by Chester A. Arthur

Drill it — 5 cards

1 / 5new card

Sources

Miller Center, University of Virginia — James A. Garfield
Candice Millard — Destiny of the Republic