James Garfield

James Abram Garfield (1831–1881) was the twentieth President of the United States. In 1881, only six months into his presidency, Garfield became the second president to be assassinated. Before his election, Garfield had served as a general in the United States Army, and represented Ohio in the U.S. House of Representatives.

James Garfield in Southern Victory
James Garfield was a Republican senator who represented Ohio in the United States Senate. He had been an officer in the Union Army during the War of Secession and had served on a number of courts-martial. He rose to prominence by purging the Army of defeatists after the end of the war.

In 1882, Garfield was one of several prominent Republican leaders to attend a convention called by former Abraham Lincoln in Chicago. He resisted Lincoln's proposal to replace hostility toward the Confederate States with workers' rights as the central plank of the party's platform. The rejection of this proposal led to Lincoln's defection to the Socialist Party and the end of the Republican Party as an effective force in American politics.