By the Maui Curmudgeon (20th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

JAMES A. GARFIELD: 1881  ~ 20th U.S. President

There isn’t much to say about a six-month presidency. James A. Garfield was the second president assassinated in office in 16 years. The unfixable mistake that the “founding fathers” built into our country - the tolerance of slavery and religion - would once again kill.

Garfield was a compromise candidate on the Republican side. He narrowly won the nomination (over Ulysses S. Grant no less) on the 34th ballot, and narrowly won the election, with a plurality of just 9,000 votes nationwide.

He had hardly appointed his cabinet when his wife came down with malaria. By July, she was strong enough that they decided they would meet in New England. Standing on a train platform, anxious to reunite with his wife, Garfield was shot twice by a religious fanatic, Charles Guiteau. One bullet went through Garfield’s arm and the other his back.

Neither wound was thought fatal, though no one could find the bullet in his back. Alexander Graham Bell was brought in to use an electrical device to locate the metal bullet. He failed. Doctors probed his back often, and it is now believed that infection caused by the probing was what killed Garfield. The 80 days he lay in bed he suffered high fevers and much pain, before he died September 19, 1881. His one act as president was to sign an extradition paper.

His presidency is so short that he is not ranked.

INTERESTING BIT
He appointed Robert Todd Lincoln, Abe’s first son, to his cabinet, as Secretary of War. Robert Lincoln died in 1926, the last descendant of the president. The photograph below shows Robert Lincoln (right), with president Warren G. Harding and past-president Howard Taft.

Interesting Reading:

The Fatal Bullet: The True Account of the Assassination, Lingering Pain, Death, and Burial of James A. Garfield, Twentieth President of the United States … of Victorian Murder (Graphic Novels)) by Rick Geary