286 



GARFIELD, JAMES A. 



ber, Felix Pyat, the director of "La Com- 

 mune,'' was condemned to two years' impris- 

 onment and 1,000 francs' fine, for having writ- 

 ten in his paper a rhetorical panegyric of regi- 



cide, and originated the idea of a public sub- 

 scription of five centimes to buy a pistol of 

 honor for Berezowski, who shot at the Em- 

 peror of Russia while he was at Paris in 1867. 



G- 



GARFIELD, JAMES ABEAM, President-elect 

 of the United States, was born in Cuyahoga 

 County. Ohio, November 19, 1831. His pater- 

 nal ancestors came from England and settled 

 at Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1635. His 

 father, Abram Garfield, was born in New York ; 

 his mother, Eliza Ballou, in New Hampshire. 



In 1830 they moved to Ohio, and settled in 

 the Orange Woods, then a dense forest, broken 

 only by occasional clearings of settlers. Here, 

 in 1833, Abram Garfield died, leaving a family 

 of four children, of whom James was the young- 

 est, dependent upon the exertions of a widowed 

 mother. His boyhood was spent in laboring 

 on the farm and wood-chopping during the sum- 

 mer, to assist in the support of the family, and 

 in attending the pioneer district school about 

 three months each winter. When fourteen years 

 of age he learned the carpenter's trade. His 

 seventeenth summer .was passed as a driver and 

 helmsman on the Ohio Canal. 



His early ambition was to become a sailor, 

 but a three months' attack of fever and ague, 

 contracted on the canal, changed the current 

 of his life into literary channels. 



In March, 1849, he entered Geauga Semi- 

 nary at Chester, Ohio, -and at the close of the 

 fall term was competent to teach a district 

 school. He rented a room with two other 

 young men and boarded himself. Except sev- 

 enteen dollars, which was all the aid his mother 

 could render him, he paid his own expenses, 

 working at his trade in Chester, mornings, 

 evenings, Saturdays, and the summer vacation. 

 After the first term he received no pecuniary 

 assistance during his entire school and collegi- 

 ate course. From 1851, three years of his life 

 were passed in the Eclectic Institute at Hiram, 

 performing at first the double duties of student 

 and janitor, afterward of student and teacher. 

 His earnings, which by the closest economy lie 

 had saved at Hiram, did not cover his expenses 

 at Williams College, and he left college with a 

 debt of five hundred dollars, which he after- 

 ward faithfully discharged. Before leaving 

 college he identified himself with the Repub- 

 lican party. On his return to Ohio he ac- 

 cepted the professorship of Ancient Languages 

 and Literature in Hiram College. The next 

 year, at the age of twenty-six, he was made its 

 president, which office he held till he entered 

 the army in 1861. During this term he made 

 frequent public addresses, both from the plat- 

 form and pulpit, but it never was his purpose 

 to enter the ministry. In the religious body 

 of which he is a member, called " Disciples of 



Christ," but generally known as " Campbell- 

 ites," any member is privileged to preach. 



In 1858 he married Miss Lucretia Rudolph, 

 a teacher, whose thorough culture in the classics, 

 modern languages, and literature, has enabled 

 her to keep even pace with her husband in his 

 literary career. 



In 1859 he was elected to the Ohio Senate. 

 His well-known characteristics as a legislator, 

 his effectiveness as a debater, and his thorough- 

 ness as a committee-man, were manifested in 

 his career in the State Senate in 1860 and 1861. 

 He studied law while President of Hiram Col- 

 lege, and was admitted to the bar by the Su- 

 preme Court at Columbus during his second 

 winter in the Ohio Senate. In 1866 he was 

 admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of 

 the United States. 



General Garfield's military services cover a 

 period of two years and three months. After 

 the first battle of Bull Run, Governor Denison- 

 offered him a lieutenant-colonel's commission. 

 He was mustered into the service August 16, 

 1861, and reported to General Hill at Camp 

 Chase for instruction in camp duty and disci- 

 pline. He was soon after detailed to recruit the 

 Forty-second Regiment of Ohio Volunteers, and 

 was commissioned its colonel September 5th. 

 In December, 1861, he was ordered with his 

 regiment to eastern Kentucky and placed 

 in command of the Eighteenth Ohio Brigade, 

 where he conducted a winter's campaign against 

 the Confederate forces under General Hum- 

 phrey Marshall. In recognition of his services 

 President Lincoln promoted him to the rank 

 of brigadier-general of volunteers, dating his 

 commission from January 10, 1862. His regi- 

 ment, the Forty-second Ohio, was never again 

 under his command. He was ordered to re- 

 port to General Buell, who was hastening to 

 effect a junction with General Grant at Pitts- 

 burg Landing, and was assigned to the command 

 of the Twentieth Brigade, which reached Shi- 

 loh on the afternoon of the second day of the 

 battle, April 7, 1862. The next day he moved 

 with General Sherman to the front, and shared 

 in a sharp engagement with the rear-guard of 

 the retreating army. He participated in the 

 subsequent operations around Corinth, Decatur, 

 and Huntsville, Alabama. November 25th he 

 was detailed as a member of the general court- 

 martial for the trial of General Fitz John Por- 

 ter. An official order, dated January 14, 1863, 

 sent him to the Army of the Cumberland, then 

 under the command of General Rosecrans ; he 

 was made his chief of staff, and participated in 



