When James Garfield came face to face with slavery during his time fighting in the South, his belief in the cause of abolition and freedom was strengthened.
In the only major speech of his presidential campaign, Garfield spoke to 50,000 in New York on the issue closest to his heart: the fate of ex-slaves in the South.
When Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, it was seen as an anomly. As such, there were no new safeguards put in place to protect the president from would-be assassins.
President James Garfield was just four months into his presidency when he was shot by a deranged office-seeker named Charles Guiteau. After his death that September, Garfield became a symbol of lost opportunity for a nation in transition.
President James Garfield was only four months into his presidency when he was shot by Charles Guiteau, who claimed that God had instructed him to kill the president.
In the early 1900s, a struggle over working conditions of coal miners led to the largest armed insurrection since the Civil War and turned parts of West Virginia into a war zone.
