1831–1881 · 20th U.S. President, Union general & Ohio congressman
James Abram Garfield (1831–1881) rose from an impoverished Ohio childhood to become a college president, Union major-general, nine-term congressman, and, in 1881, the 20th President of the United States. A noted orator with a taste for pithy, self-reliant maxims, he served only about six months before being shot in July 1881 and dying that September. His many aphorisms on effort and character were gathered into memorial biographies almost immediately after his death.