VI.
JAMES GARFIELD, CANAL BOY.
At the present time, the neighbourhood of Cleveland, Ohio, the busiest
town along the southern shore of Lake Erie, may fairly rank as one of
the richest agricultural districts in all America. But when Abram
Garfield settled down in the township of Orange in 1830, it was one of
the wildest and most unpeopled woodland regions in the whole of the
United States. Pioneers from the older states had only just begun to
make little clearings for themselves in the unbroken forest; and land
was still so cheap that Abram Garfield was able to buy himself a tract
of fifty acres for no more than L20. His brother-in-law's family removed
there with him; and the whole strength of the two households was
immediately employed in building a rough log hut for their common
accommodation, where both the Garfields and the Boyntons lived together
during the early days of their occupation. The hut consisted of a mere
square box, made by piling logs on top of one another, the spaces
between being filled with mud, while the roof was formed of loose stone
slabs. Huts of that sort are everywhere common among the isolation of
the American backwoods; and isolated indeed they were, for the
Garfields' nearest neighbours, when they first set up house, lived as
far as seven miles away, across the uncleared forest.
When Abram Garfield came to this lonely lodge in the primaeval
woodlands, he had one son and one daughter. In 1831, the year after his
removal to his new home, a second boy was born into the family, whom his
father named James Abram. Before the baby was eighteen months old, the
father died, and was buried alone, after the only possible fashion among
such solitary settlers, in a corner of the wheat field which he himself
had cleared of its stumps. A widow's life is always a hard one, but in
such a country and under such conditions it is even harder and more
lonely than elsewhere. Mrs. Garfield's eldest boy, Thomas, was only
eleven years old; and with the aid of this one ineffectual helper, she
managed herself to carry on the farm for many years. Only those who know
the hard toil of a raw American township can have any idea what that
really means. A farmer's work in America is not like a farmer's work in
England. The man who occupies the soil is there at once his own landlord
and his own labourer; and he has to contend with nature as nobody in
England has had to contend with it for the last five centuries at least.
He finds the land covered with trees, which he has first to fell and
sell as timber; then he must dig or burn out the stumps; clear the plot
of boulders and large stones; drain it, fence it, plough it, and harrow
it; build barns for the produce and sheds for the cows; in short,
_make_ his farm, instead of merely _taking_ it. This is labour
from which many strong men shrink in dismay, especially those who have
come out fresh from a civilized and fully occupied land. For a woman and
a boy, it is a task that seems almost above their utmost powers.
Nevertheless, Mrs. Garfield and her son did not fail under it. With her
own hands, the mother split up the young trees into rude triangular
rails to make the rough snake fences of the country--mere zigzags of
wood laid one bit above the other; while the lad worked away bravely at
sowing fall and spring wheat, hoeing Indian corn, and building a little
barn for the harvest before the arrival of the long cold Ohio winter. To
such a family did the future President originally belong; and with them
he must have shared those strong qualities of perseverance and industry
which more than anything else at length secured his ultimate success in
life.
For James Garfield's history differs greatly in one point from that of
most other famous working men, whose stories have been told in this
volume. There is no reason to believe that he was a man of exceptional
or commanding intellect. On the contrary, his mental powers appear to
have been of a very respectable but quite ordinary and commonplace
order. It was not by brilliant genius that James Garfield made his way
up in life; it was rather by hard work, unceasing energy, high
principle, and generous enthusiasm for the cause of others. Some of the
greatest geniuses among working men, such as Burns, Tannahill, and
Chatterton, though they achieved fame, and though they have enriched the
world with many touching and beautiful works, must be considered to have
missed success in life, so far as their own happiness was concerned, by
their unsteadiness, want of self-control, or lack of fixed principle.
Garfield, on the other hand, was not a genius; but by his sterling good
qualities he nevertheless achieved what cannot but be regarded as a true
success, and left an honourable name behind him in the history of his
country.
However poor an American township may be, it is seldom too poor to
afford its children a moderate and humble education. While James
Garfield was still very young, the settlers in the neighbourhood decided
to import a schoolmaster, whom they "boarded about" between them, after
a fashion very common in rural western districts. The school-house was
only a log hut; the master was a lad of twenty; and the textbooks were
of the very meagrest sort. But at least James Garfield was thus enabled
to read and write, which after all is the great first step on the road
to all possible promotion. The raw, uncouth Yankee lad who taught the
Ohio boys, slept at Widow Garfield's, with Thomas and James; and the
sons of the neighbouring settlers worked on the farm during the summer
months, but took lessons when the long ice and snow of winter along the
lake shore put a stop almost entirely for the time to their usual
labours.
James continued at school till he was twelve years old, and then, his
brother Thomas (being by that time twenty-one) went away by agreement
still further west to Michigan, leaving young Jim to take his place upon
the little farm. The fences were all completed by this time; the barn
was built, the ground was fairly brought under cultivation, and it
required comparatively little labour to keep the land cropped after the
rough fashion which amply satisfies American pioneers, with no rent to
pay, and only their bare living to make out of the soil. Thomas was
going to fell trees in Michigan, to clear land there for a farmer; and
he proposed to use his earnings (when he got them) for the purpose of
building a "frame house" (that is to say, a house built of planks)
instead of the existing log hut. It must be added, in fairness, that
hard as were the circumstances under which the young Garfields lived,
they were yet lucky in their situation in a new country, where wages
were high, and where the struggle for life is far less severe or
competitive than in old settled lands like France and England. Thomas,
in fact; would get boarded for nothing in Michigan, and so would be able
easily to save almost all his high wages for the purpose of building the
frame house.
So James had to take to the farm in summer, while in the winter he began
to work as a sort of amateur carpenter in a small way. As yet he had
lived entirely in the backwoods, and had never seen a town or even a
village; but his education in practical work had begun from his very
babyhood, and he was handy after the usual fashion of American or
colonial boys--ready to turn his hand to anything that happened to
present itself. In new countries, where everybody has not got neighbours
and workmen within call, such rough-and-ready handiness is far more
common than in old England. The one carpenter of the neighbourhood asked
James to help him, on the proud day when Tom brought back his earnings
from Michigan, and set about the building of the frame house, for which
he had already collected the unhewn timber. From that first beginning,
by the time he was thirteen, James was promoted to assist in building a
barn; and he might have taken permanently to a carpenter's life, had it
not been that his boyish passion for reading had inspired him with an
equal passion for going to sea. He had read Marryatt's novels and other
sailor tales--what boy has not?--and he was fired with the usual
childish desire to embark upon that wonderful life of chasing
buccaneers, fighting pirates, capturing prizes, or hunting hidden
treasure, which is a lad's brilliantly coloured fancy picture of an
everyday sailor's wet, cold, cheerless occupation.
At last, when James was about fifteen, his longing for the sea grew so
strong that his mother, by way of a compromise, allowed him to go and
try his luck with the Lake Erie captains at Cleveland. Shipping on the
great lakes, where one can see neither bank from the middle of the wide
blue sheet of water, and where wrecks are unhappily as painfully
frequent as on our own coasts, was quite sufficiently like going to sea
to suit the adventurous young backwoodsman to the top of his bent. But
when he got to Cleveland, a fortunate disappointment awaited him. The
Cleveland captains declined his services in such vigorous seafaring
language (not unmixed with many unnecessary oaths), that he was glad
enough to give up the idea of sailoring, and take a place as driver of a
canal boat from Cleveland to Pittsburg in Pennsylvania, the boat being
under the charge of one of his own cousins. Copper ore was then largely
mined on Lake Superior, where it is very abundant, carried by ship to
Cleveland, down the chain of lakes, and there transferred to canal
boats, which took it on to Pittsburg, the centre of a great coal and
manufacturing district in Pennsylvania, to be smelted and employed in
various local arts. Young Garfield stuck for a little while to the canal
business. He plodded along wearily upon the bank, driving his still
wearier horse before him, and carrying ore down to Pittsburg with such
grace as he best might; but it didn't somehow quite come up to his fancy
picture of the seaman's life. It was dull and monotonous, and he didn't
care for it much. In genuine American language, "he didn't find it up to
sample." The sea might be very well in its way; but a canal was a very
different matter indeed. So after a fair trial, James finally gave the
business up, and returned to his mother on the little homestead, ill and
tired with his long tramping.
While he was at home, the schoolmaster of the place, who saw that the
lad had abilities, was never tired of urging him to go to school, and do
himself justice by getting himself a first-rate education, or at least
as good a one as could be obtained in America. James was ready enough to
take this advice, if the means were forthcoming; but how was he to do
so? "Oh, that's easy enough," said young Bates, the master. "You'll only
have to work out of hours as a carpenter, take odd jobs in your
vacations, live plainly, and there you are." In England there are few
schools where such a plan would be practicable; but in rough-and-ready
America, where self-help is no disgrace, there are many, and they are
all well attended. In the neighbouring town of Chester, a petty Baptist
sect had started a young school which they named Geauga Seminary (there
are no plain schools in America--they are all "academies" or
"institutes"); and to this simple place young Garfield went, to learn
and work as best he might for his own advancement. A very strange figure
he must then have cut, indeed; for a person who saw him at the time
described him as wearing a pair of trousers he had long outworn, rough
cow-hide boots, a waistcoat much too short for him, and a thread-bare
coat, with sleeves that only reached a little below the elbows. Of such
stuff as that, with a stout heart and an eager brain, the budding
presidents of the United States are sometimes made.
James soon found himself humble lodgings at an old woman's in Chester,
and he also found himself a stray place at a carpenter's shop in the
town, where he was able to do three hours' work out of school time every
day, besides giving up the whole of his Saturday holiday to regular
labour. It was hard work, this schooling and carpentering side by side;
but James throve upon it; and at the end of the first term he was not
only able to pay all his bill for board and lodging, but also to carry
home a few dollars in his pocket by way of savings.
James stopped three years at the "seminary" at Chester; and in the
holidays he employed himself by teaching in the little township schools
among the country districts. There is generally an opening for young
students to earn a little at such times by instructing younger boys than
themselves in reading, writing, and arithmetic; and the surrounding
farmers, who want schooling for their boys, are glad enough to take the
master in on the "boarding round" system, for the sake of his usefulness
in overlooking the lads in the preparation of their home lessons. It is
a simple patriarchal life, very different from anything we know in
England; and though Ohio was by this time a far more settled and
populated place than when Abram Garfield first went there, it was still
quite possible to manage in this extremely primitive and family fashion.
The fact is, though luxuries were comparatively unknown, food was cheap
and abundant; and a young teacher who was willing to put his heart into
his work could easily earn more than enough to live upon in rough
comfort. Sometimes the school-house was a mere log hut, like that in
which young Garfield had been born; but, at any rate, it was work to do,
and food to eat, and that alone was a great thing for a lad who meant to
make his own way in the world by his own exertions.
Near the end of his third year at Chester, James met, quite
accidentally, with a young man who had come from a little embryo
"college," of the sort so common in rising American towns, at a place
called Hiram in Ohio. American schools are almost as remarkable as
American towns for the oddity and ugliness of their names; and this
"college" was known by the queer and meaningless title of the "Eclectic
Institute." It was conducted by an obscure sect who dub themselves "The
Disciples' Church," to which young Garfield's father and mother had both
belonged. His casual acquaintance urged upon him strongly the
desirability of attending the institute; and James, who had already
begun to learn Latin, and wished to learn more, was easily persuaded to
try this particular school rather than any other.
In August, 1851, James Garfield, then aged nearly twenty, presented
himself at the "Eclectic Institute," in the farm-labourer's clothes
which were his only existing raiment. He asked to see the "president" of
the school, and told him plainly that he wished to come there for
education, but that he was poor, and if he came, he must work for his
living. "What can you do?" asked the president. "Sweep the floors, light
the fires, ring the bell, and make myself generally useful," answered
the young backwoodsman. The president, pleased with his eagerness,
promised to try him for a fortnight; and at the end of the fortnight,
Garfield had earned his teaching so well that he was excused from all
further fees during the remainder of his stay at the little institute.
His post was by no mean an easy one, for he was servant-of-all-work as
well as student; but he cared very little for that as long as he could
gain the means for self-improvement.
Hiram was a small town, as ugly as its name. Twelve miles from a
railway, a mere agricultural centre, of the rough back-country sort, all
brand new and dreary looking, with a couple of wooden churches, half a
dozen wooden shops, two new intersecting streets with wooden sidewalks,
and that was all. The "institute" was a square brick block, planted
incongruously in the middle of an Indian-corn plantation; and the
students were the sons and daughters of the surrounding farmers, for (as
in most western schools) both sexes were here educated together.
But the place suited Garfield far better than an older and more
dignified university would have done. The other students knew no more
than he did, so that he did not feel himself at a disadvantage; they
were dressed almost as plainly as himself; and during the time he was at
Hiram he worked away with a will at Latin, Greek, and the higher
mathematics, so as to qualify himself for a better place hereafter.
Meanwhile, the local carpenter gave him plenty of planing to do, with
which he managed to pay his way; and as he had to rise before five every
morning to ring the first bell, he was under no danger of oversleeping
himself. By 1853, he had made so much progress in his studies that he
was admitted as a sort of pupil teacher, giving instruction himself in
the English department and in rudimentary Greek and Latin, while he went
on with his own studies with the aid of the other teachers.
James had now learnt as much as the little "Eclectic Institute" could
possibly teach him, and he began to think of going to some better
college in the older-settled and more cultivated eastern states, where
he might get an education somewhat higher than was afforded him by the
raw "seminaries" and "academies" of his native Ohio. True, his own sect,
the "Disciples' Church," had got up a petty university of their own,
"Bethany College"--such self-styled colleges swarm all over the United
States; but James didn't much care for the idea of going to it. "I was
brought up among the Disciples," he said; "I have mixed chiefly among
them; I know little of other people; it will enlarge my views and give
me more liberal feelings if I try a college elsewhere, conducted
otherwise; if I see a little of the rest of the world." Moreover, those
were stirring times in the States. The slavery question was beginning to
come uppermost. The men of the free states in the north and west were
beginning to say among themselves that they would no longer tolerate
that terrible blot upon American freedom--the enslavement of four
million negroes in the cotton-growing south. James Garfield felt all his
soul stirred within him by this great national problem--the greatest
that any modern nation has ever had to solve for itself. Now, his own
sect, the Disciples, and their college, Bethany, were strongly tinctured
with a leaning in favour of slavery, which young James Garfield utterly
detested. So he made up his mind to having nothing to do with the
accursed thing, but to go east to some New England college, where he
would mix among men of culture, and where he would probably find more
congenial feelings on the slavery question.
Before deciding, he wrote to three eastern colleges, amongst others to
Yale, the only American university which by its buildings and
surroundings can lay any claim to compare, even at a long distance, in
beauty and associations, with the least among European universities. The
three colleges gave him nearly similar answers; but one of them, in
addition to the formal statement of terms and so forth, added the short
kindly sentence, "If you come here, we shall be glad to do what we can
for you." It was only a small polite phrase; but it took the heart of
the rough western boy. If other things were about the same, he said, he
would go to the college which offered him, as it were, a friendly grasp
of the hand. He had saved a little money at Hiram; and he proposed now
to go on working for his living, as he had hitherto done, side by side
with his regular studies. But his brother, who was always kind and
thoughtful to him, would not hear of this. Thomas had prospered
meanwhile in his own small way, and he insisted upon lending James such
a sum as would cover his necessary expenses for two years at an eastern
university. James insured his life for the amount, so that Thomas might
not be a loser by his brotherly generosity in case of his death before
repayment could be made; and then, with the money safe in his pocket, he
started off for his chosen goal, the Williams College, in one of the
most beautiful and hilly parts of Massachusetts.
During the three years that Garfield was at this place, he studied hard
and regularly, so much so that at one time his brain showed symptoms of
giving way under the constant strain. In the vacations, he took a trip
into Vermont, a romantic mountain state, where he opened a writing
school at a little country village; and another into the New York State,
where he engaged himself in a similar way at a small town on the banks
of the lovely Hudson river. At college, in spite of his rough western
dress and manners, he earned for himself the reputation of a thoroughly
good fellow. Indeed, geniality and warmth of manner, qualities always
much prized by the social American people, were very marked traits
throughout of Garfield's character, and no doubt helped him greatly in
after life in rising to the high summit which he finally reached. It was
here, too, that he first openly identified himself with the anti-slavery
party, which was then engaged in fighting out the important question
whether any new slave states should be admitted to the Union. Charles
Sumner, the real grand central figure of that noble struggle, was at
that moment thundering in Congress against the iniquitous extension of
the slave-holding area, and was employing all his magnificent powers to
assail the abominable Fugitive Slave Bill, for the return of runaway
negroes, who escaped north, into the hands of their angry masters. The
American colleges are always big debating societies, where questions of
politics are regularly argued out among the students; and Garfield put
himself at the head of the anti-slavery movement at his own little
university. He spoke upon the subject frequently before the assembled
students, and gained himself a considerable reputation, not only as a
zealous advocate of the rights of the negro, but also as an eloquent
orator and a powerful argumentative debater.
In 1856, Garfield took his degree at Williams College, and had now
finished his formal education. By that time, he was a fair though not a
great scholar, competently read in the Greek and Latin literatures, and
with a good knowledge of French and German. He was now nearly twenty-
five years old; and his experience was large and varied enough to make
him already into a man of the world. He had been farmer, carpenter,
canal driver, and student; he had seen the primitive life of the forest,
and the more civilized society of the Atlantic shore; he had taught in
schools in many states; he had supported himself for years by his own
labours; and now, at an age when many young men are, as a rule, only
just beginning life on their own account, he had practically raised
himself from his own class into the class of educated and cultivated
gentlemen. As soon as he had taken his degree, his old friends, the
trustees of the "Eclectic Institute" at Hiram, proud of their former
sweeper and bell-ringer, called him back at a good salary as teacher of
Greek and Latin. It was then just ten years since he had toiled wearily
along the tow-path of the Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal.
As a teacher, Garfield seems to have been eminently successful. His
genial character and good-natured way of explaining things made him a
favourite at once with the rough western lads he had to teach, who would
perhaps have thought a more formal teacher stiff and stuck-up. Garfield
was one of themselves; he knew their ways and their manners; he could
make allowances for their awkwardness and bluntness of speech; he could
adopt towards them the exact tone which put them at home at once with
their easy-going instructor. Certainly, he inspired all his pupils with
an immense love and devotion for him; and it is less easy to inspire
those feelings in a sturdy Ohio farmer than in most other varieties of
the essentially affectionate human species.
From 1857 to 1861, Garfield remained at Hiram, teaching and working very
hard. His salary, though a good one for the time and place, was still
humble according to our English notions; but it sufficed for his needs;
and as yet it would have seemed hardly credible that in only twenty
years the Ohio schoolmaster would rise to be President of the United
States. Indeed, it is only in America, that country of peculiarly
unencumbered political action, where every kind of talent is most
rapidly recognized and utilized, that this particular form of swift
promotion is really possible. But while Garfield was still at his
Institute, he was taking a vigorous part in local politics, especially
on the slavery question. Whenever there was a political meeting at
Hiram, the young schoolmaster was always called upon to take the anti-
slavery side; and he delivered himself so effectively upon this
favourite topic that he began to be looked upon as a rising political
character. In America, politics are less confined to any one class than
in Europe; and there would be nothing unusual in the selection of a
schoolmaster who could talk to a seat in the local or general
legislature. The practice of paying members makes it possible for
comparatively poor men to offer themselves as candidates; and politics
are thus a career, in the sense of a livelihood, far more than in any
other country.
In 1858, Garfield married a lady who had been a fellow-student of his in
earlier days, and to whom he had been long engaged. In the succeeding
year, he got an invitation which greatly pleased and flattered him. The
authorities at Williams College asked him to deliver the "Master's
Oration" at their annual festival; an unusual compliment to pay to so
young a man, and one who had so recently taken his degree. It was the
first opportunity he had ever had for a pleasure-trip, and taking his
young wife with him (proud indeed, we may be sure, at this earliest
honour of his life, the precursor of so many more) he went to
Massachusetts by a somewhat roundabout but very picturesque route, down
the Great Lakes, through the Thousand Islands, over the St. Lawrence
rapids, and on to Quebec, the only town in America which from its old-
world look can lay claim to the sort of beauty which so many ancient
European cities abundantly possess. He delivered his address with much
applause and returned to his Ohio home well satisfied with this pleasant
outing.
Immediately on his return, the speech-making schoolmaster was met by a
very sudden and unexpected request that he would allow himself to be
nominated for the State legislature. Every state of the Union has its
own separate little legislative body, consisting of two houses; and it
was to the upper of these, the Senate of Ohio, that James Garfield was
asked to become a candidate. The schoolmaster consented; and as those
were times of very great excitement, when the South was threatening to
secede if a President hostile to the slave-owning interest was elected,
the contest was fought out almost entirely along those particular lines.
Garfield was returned as senator by a large majority, and took his seat
in the Ohio Senate in January, 1860. There, his voice was always raised
against slavery, and he was recognized at once as one of the ablest
speakers in the whole legislature.
In 1861, the great storm burst over the States. In the preceding
November, Abraham Lincoln had been elected President. Lincoln was
himself, like Garfield, a self-made man, who had risen from the very
same pioneer labourer class;--a wood-cutter and rail-splitter in the
backwoods of Illinois, he had become a common boatman on the
Mississippi, and had there improved his mind by reading eagerly in all
his spare moments. With one of those rapid rises so commonly made by
self-taught lads in America, he had pushed his way into the Illinois
legislature by the time he was twenty-five, and qualified himself to
practise as a barrister at Springfield. His shrewd original talents had
raised him with wonderful quickness into the front ranks of his own
party; and when the question between the North and South rose into the
region of practical politics, Lincoln was selected by the republicans
(the anti-slavery group) as their candidate for the Presidency of the
United States. This selection was a very significant one in several
ways; Lincoln was a very strong opponent of slavery, and his candidature
showed the southern slaveowners that if the Republicans were successful
in the contest, a vigorous move against the slave-holding oligarchy
would at once be made. But it was also significant in the fact that
Lincoln was a western man; it was a sign that the farmers and grangers
of the agricultural west were beginning to wake up politically and throw
themselves into the full current of American State affairs. On both
these grounds, Lincoln's nomination must have been deeply interesting to
Garfield, whose own life had been so closely similar, and who was
destined, twenty years later, to follow him to the same goal.
Lincoln was duly elected, and the southern states began to secede. The
firing upon Fort Sumter by the South Carolina secessionists was the
first blow struck in that terrible war. Every man who was privileged to
live in America at that time (like the present writer) cannot recall
without a glow of recollection the memory of the wild eagerness with
which the North answered that note of defiance, and went forth with
overpowering faith and eagerness to fight the good fight on behalf of
human freedom. Such a spontaneous outburst of the enthusiasm of humanity
has never been known, before or since. President Lincoln immediately
called for a supply of seventy-five thousand men. In the Ohio Senate,
his message was read amid tumultuous applause; and the moment the sound
of the cheers died away, Garfield, as natural spokesman of the
republican party, sprang to his feet, and moved in a short and
impassioned speech that the state of Ohio should contribute twenty
thousand men and three million dollars as its share in the general
preparations. The motion was immediately carried with the wildest
demonstrations of fervour, and Ohio, with all the rest of the North,
rose like one man to put down by the strong hand the hideous traffic in
human flesh and blood.
During those fiery and feverish days, every citizen of the loyal states
felt himself to be, in reserve at least, a possible soldier. It was
necessary to raise, drill, and render effective in an incredibly short
time a large army; and it would have been impossible to do so had it not
been for the eager enthusiasm with which civilians of every sort
enlisted, and threw themselves into their military duties with almost
incredible devotion. Garfield felt that he must bear his own part in the
struggle by fighting it out, not in the Senate but on the field; and his
first move was to obtain a large quantity of arms from the arsenal in
the doubtfully loyal state of Missouri. In this mission he was
completely successful; and he was next employed to raise and organize
two new regiments of Ohio infantry. Garfield, of course, knew absolutely
nothing of military matters at that time; but it was not a moment to
stand upon questions of precedence or experience; the born organizers
came naturally to the front, and Garfield was one of them. Indeed, the
faculty for organization seems innate in the American people, so that
when it became necessary to raise and equip so large a body of men at a
few weeks' notice, the task was undertaken offhand by lawyers, doctors,
shopkeepers, and schoolmasters, without a minute's hesitation, and was
performed on the whole with distinguished success.
When Garfield had organized his regiments, the Governor asked him to
accept the post of colonel to one of them. But Garfield at first
mistrusted his own powers in this direction. How should he, who had
hitherto been poring chiefly over the odes of Horace (his favourite
poet), now take so suddenly to leading a thousand men into actual
battle? He would accept only a subordinate position, he said, if a
regular officer of the United States army, trained at the great military
academy at West Point, was placed in command. So the Governor told him
to go among his own farmer friends in his native district, and recruit a
third regiment, promising to find him a West Point man as colonel, if
one was available. Garfield accepted the post of lieutenant-colonel,
raised the 42nd Ohio regiment, chiefly among his own old pupils at
Hiram, and set off for the seat of operations. At the last moment the
Governor failed to find a regular officer to lead these raw recruits,
every available man being already occupied, and Garfield found himself,
against his will, compelled to undertake the responsible task of
commanding the regiment. He accepted the task thus thrust upon him, and
as if by magic transformed himself at once from a schoolmaster into an
able soldier.
In less than one month, Colonel Garfield took his raw troops into action
in the battle of Middle Creek, and drove the Confederate General
Marshall, with far larger numbers, out of his intrenchments, compelling
him to retreat into Virginia. This timely victory did much to secure the
northern advance along the line of the Mississippi. During the whole of
the succeeding campaign Garfield handled his regiment with such native
skill and marked success that the Government appointed him Brigadier-
General for his bravery and military talent. In spite of all his early
disadvantages, he had been the youngest member of the Ohio Senate, and
now he was the youngest general in the whole American army.
Shortly after, the important victory of Chickamauga was gained almost
entirely by the energy and sagacity of General Garfield. For this
service, he was raised one degree in dignity, receiving his commission
as Major-General. He served altogether only two years and three months
in the army.
But while Garfield was at the head of his victorious troops in Kentucky,
his friends in Ohio were arranging, without his consent or knowledge, to
call him away to a very different sphere of work. They nominated
Garfield as their candidate for the United States House of
Representatives at Washington. The General himself was unwilling to
accede to their request, when it reached him. He thought he could serve
the country better in the field than in Congress. Besides, he was still
a comparatively poor man. His salary as Major-General was double that of
a member of the House; and for his wife's and children's sake he
hesitated to accept the lesser position. Had he continued in the army to
the end of the war, he would doubtless have risen to the very highest
honours of that stirring epoch. But President Lincoln was very anxious
that Garfield should come into the Congress, where his presence would
greatly strengthen the President's hands; and with a generous self-
denial which well bespeaks his thorough loyalty, Garfield gave up his
military post and accepted a place in the House of Representatives. He
took his seat in December, 1863.
For seventeen years, General Garfield sat in the general legislature of
the United States as one of the members for Ohio. During all that time,
he distinguished himself most honourably as the fearless advocate of
honest government, and the pronounced enemy of those underhand dodges
and wire-pulling machinery which are too often the disgrace of American
politics. He was opposed to all corruption and chicanery, especially to
the bad system of rewarding political supporters with places under
Government, which has long been the chief blot upon American republican
institutions. As a person of stalwart honesty and singleness of purpose,
he made himself respected by both sides alike. Politically speaking,
different men will judge very differently of Garfield's acts in the
House of Representatives. Englishmen especially cannot fail to remark
that his attitude towards ourselves was almost always one of latent
hostility; but it is impossible for anybody to deny that his conduct was
uniformly guided by high principle, and a constant deference to what he
regarded as the right course of action.
In 1880, when General Garfield had already risen to be the acknowledged
leader of the House of Representatives, his Ohio supporters put him in
nomination for the upper chamber, the Senate. They wished Garfield to
come down to the state capital and canvas for support; but this the
General would not hear of. "I never asked for any place yet," he said,
"except the post of bell-ringer and general sweeper at the Hiram
Institute, and I won't ask for one now." But at least, his friends
urged, he would be on the spot to encourage and confer with his
partisans. No, Garfield answered; if they wished to elect him they must
elect him in his absence; he would avoid all appearance, even, of
angling for office. The result was that all the other candidates
withdrew, and Garfield was elected by acclamation.
After the election he went down to Ohio and delivered a speech to his
constituents, a part of which strikingly illustrates the courage and
independence of the backwoods schoolmaster. "During the twenty years
that I have been in public life," he said, "almost eighteen of it in the
Congress of the United States, I have tried to do one thing. Whether I
was mistaken or otherwise, it has been the plan of my life to follow my
conviction, at whatever personal cost to myself. I have represented for
many years a district in Congress whose approbation I greatly desired;
but though it may seem, perhaps, a little egotistical to say it, I yet
desired still more the approbation of one person, and his name was
Garfield. He is the only man that I am compelled to sleep with, and eat
with, and live with, and die with; and if I could not have his
approbation I should have bad companionship."
Only one higher honour could now fall to the lot of a citizen of the
United States. The presidency was the single post to which Garfield's
ambition could still aspire. That honour came upon him, like all the
others, without his seeking; and it came, too, quite unexpectedly. Five
months later, in the summer of 1880, the National Republican Convention
met to select a candidate for their party at the forthcoming
presidential election. Every four years, before the election, each party
thus meets to decide upon the man to whom its votes will be given at the
final choice. After one or two ineffectual attempts to secure unanimity
in favour of other and more prominent politicians, the Convention with
one accord chose James Garfield for its candidate--a nomination which
was quite as great a surprise to Garfield himself as to all the rest of
the world. He was elected President of the United States in November,
1880.
It was a marvellous rise for the poor canal boy, the struggling student,
the obscure schoolmaster, thus to find himself placed at the head of one
among the greatest nations of the earth. He was still less than fifty,
and he might reasonably have looked forward to many years of a happy,
useful, and honourable life. Nevertheless, it is impossible to feel that
Garfield's death was other than a noble and enviable one. He was cut off
suddenly in the very moment of his brightest success, before the cares
and disappointments of office had begun to dim the pleasure of his first
unexpected triumph. He died a martyr to a good and honest cause, and his
death-bed was cheered and alleviated by the hushed sorrow and sympathy
of an entire nation--one might almost truthfully add, of the whole
civilized world.
From the first, President Garfield set his face sternly against the bad
practice of rewarding political adherents by allowing them to nominate
officials in the public service--a species of covert corruption
sanctioned by long usage in the United States. This honest and
independent conduct raised up for him at once a host of enemies among
his own party. The talk which they indulged in against the President
produced a deep effect upon a half-crazy and wildly egotistic French-
Canadian of the name of Guiteau, who had emigrated to the States and
become an American citizen. General Garfield had arranged a trip to New
England in the summer of 1881, to attend the annual festival at his old
school, the Williams College, Massachusetts; and for that purpose he
left the White House (the President's official residence at Washington)
on July 2. As he stood in the station of the Baltimore and Potomac
Railway, arm in arm with Mr. Blaine, the Secretary of State, Guiteau
approached him casually, and, drawing out a pistol, fired two shots in
rapid succession, one of which took effect on the President above the
third rib. The assassin was at once secured, and the wounded President
was carried back carefully to the White House.
Almost everybody who reads this book will remember the long suspense,
while the President lay stretched upon his bed for weeks and weeks
together, with all Europe and America watching anxiously for any sign of
recovery, and sympathizing deeply with the wounded statesman and his
devoted wife. Every effort that was possible was made to save him, but
the wound was past all surgical skill. After lingering long with the
stored-up force of a good constitution, James Garfield passed away at
last of blood-poisoning, more deeply regretted perhaps than any other
man whom the present generation can remember.
It is only in America that precisely such a success as Garfield's is
possible for people who spring, as he did, from the midst of the people.
In old-settled and wealthy countries we must be content, at best, with
slower and less lofty promotion. But the lesson of Garfield's life is
not for America only, but for the whole world of workers everywhere. The
same qualities which procured his success there will produce a
different, but still a solid success, anywhere else. As Garfield himself
fittingly put it, with his usual keen American common sense, "There is
no more common thought among young people than the foolish one, that by-
and-by something will turn up by which they will suddenly achieve fame
or fortune. No, young gentlemen; things don't turn up in this world
unless somebody turns them up."
