Wednesday, December 4, 2013

December 5, 1863---James A. Garfield on the path to the Presidency



DECEMBER 5, 1863:           

Major General James A. Garfield resigned his commission in the U.S. Army so that he could take up his duties as a member of Congress from Ohio. Garfield served nine terms in the House of Representatives before he was elected President in 1880 (one of seven Civil War veterans, all Unionists, to become President, and the only man to ever go from the House to the White House directly), and was inaugurated on March 4, 1881, only to be shot by Charles Guiteau, a disgruntled office-seeker, on July 2, 1881. Garfield lived for 80 days before succumbing to the bullet on September 19, 1881, becoming the second U.S. President to be assassinated.  Garfield was deeply committed to Civil Service reform, and his death spurred adoption of his suggested Reform Bill into law.