Fatherless at two, he later drove canal boat teams, somehow earning enough money for an James Garfield wasborn in Ohio, in 1831. Fatherless at two, he later drove canal boat teams, somehow earning enough money for an education. He graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts in 1856, and later returned to Ohio asa classics professor. Within a year he was made its president. He served 200 days as the 20th President ofthe United States before being assassinated in 1881.

Garfield was elected to the Ohio Senate in 1859 as a Republican. During the secession crisis, he argued for strengthening the Union. In 1862, when Union military victories had been few, he successfully led a brigade in Kentucky, against Confederate troops. Ohioans elected him to Congress. He repeatedly won re-election for 18 years (nine terms), and became the leading Republican in the House.

On July 2, 1881, President Garfield was on his way to Williams College, where he was due to make a speech.As he walked through a Washington railway station, he was shot twice by an assassin, Charles J. Guiteau and mortally wounded. He lay in the White House for weeks before dying from an infection and internal bleeding on September 19. He was 49. His final words were: "My work is done."

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