While his presidency was limited to 200 days, James A. Garfield had a full public
life which intersected with much of American history. The variety of categories in
this bibliography attests to the wide range of Garfield's public experiences which
spanned from a college campus and the state legislature in Ohio, to Civil War
battlefields in Kentucky and Tennessee, to the halls of Congress, and then to the
White House in Washington, D.C.

In addition to his record of public service, Garfield had a dramatic--if not
melodramatic-personal life worthy of Horatio Alger, who would, in fact, write
one of his campaign biographies. Born in a log cabin, raised in rural poverty,
deprived of a father before the age of two, Garfield became a preacher, a professor,
a college president, a brigadier general, a Congressional leader and a presidential
nominee--all before he attained the age of fifty.

It is no wonder that Rutherford B. Hayes would write in 1880 that Garfield "is
the ideal candidate because he is the ideal of self-made man," noting that "the boy
on the tow path has become in truth the scholar and the gentleman by his own
unaided work." Indeed Garfield's life personified his era's belief in a time when
the nation promoted the American dream and the values of family, education, and
self-help.

In arranging the literature relating to Garfield, this bibliography uses categories
which roughly follow a chronological order, starting with his childhood and
education. Specific events in his military and long political career are highlighted
in special sections. These include the Civil War battles of Sandy Creek and
Chickamauga and certain Congressional reform efforts and scandals. A separate
category on the Compromise of 1877 reflects Garfield's role in the disputed election
of 1876 both as an observer in Louisiana and as a member of the Electoral
Commission.

An intellectual in politics, always enamored with statistics and process, Garfield
entered the House of Representatives in 1863 and stayed for almost two decades.

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