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Garfield and Chamberlain: two scholars who became Civil War officers

In June 1881, the president of a Maine college wrote to the president of the United States with an offer of help for his sick wife. Garfield was shot before he could travel north, but the letter prompted a National Park Service article comparing two men whose lives ran strikingly alike. The article was written for the Garfield Observer by the site manager of the James A. Garfield National Historic Site in March 2017.

Portrait of President James A. Garfield

President James A. Garfield in 1881. Credit: Library of Congress.

The letter

On June 14, 1881, Joshua L. Chamberlain of Brunswick, Maine, wrote to President Garfield. Lucretia Garfield had been ill with malaria for much of the spring, and Chamberlain relayed advice from an experienced doctor: the best treatment would be a summer on the Maine coast. He offered to help find a suitable place. Chamberlain, then president of Bowdoin College, his alma mater, also invited the president to Bowdoin's commencement on July 14. Garfield was already due to head north in less than three weeks to speak at his own alma mater, Williams College, and take a vacation. He needed the break: he had recently won a hard-fought fight over patronage appointments with fellow Republicans, most notably Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, and his wife's illness had made his first months as the twentieth president harder.

Garfield never got there. On July 2, 1881, in Washington's Baltimore and Potomac station, Charles Guiteau shot him twice from behind; one bullet grazed his arm and the other lodged in his back. The article says doctors who ignored or did not know germ theory and antiseptic practice introduced infection with unclean fingers and instruments over the next eighty days. Garfield died on September 19.

Two lives, much alike

No evidence suggests Garfield and Chamberlain ever met, but the article says they would likely have liked each other.

Portrait of young James A. Garfield in a Union brigadier general's uniform

Garfield as a Union brigadier general, ca. 1862-63. Credit: Library of Congress.

  • Age. Chamberlain was born in 1828 and Garfield in 1831.
  • Religion. Both considered careers as clergymen. Chamberlain graduated from Bangor Theological Seminary but never worked as a minister, and Garfield preached as a lay minister in the Disciples of Christ.
  • Scholarship. Both had successful pre-war careers as teachers at their alma maters, Chamberlain at Bowdoin and Garfield at Ohio's Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, now Hiram College. Both taught many subjects and knew several languages, including Greek and Latin.
  • War. Both volunteered for the Union and taught themselves military leadership from books on history and tactics. Chamberlain told Maine's governor he was always interested in military matters and knew how to learn what he did not know. He became second in command of the 20th Maine Infantry, while Garfield, a state senator when Fort Sumter fell, drilled himself on the lawn of the Ohio Capitol before commanding the 42nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry.

Portrait of Brigadier General Joshua L. Chamberlain in his Union uniform

Brigadier General Joshua L. Chamberlain. He received the Medal of Honor in 1893 for his actions at Gettysburg. Credit: Library of Congress.

Diverging paths

Garfield saw action mostly in the west and Chamberlain in the east. Ohio Republicans elected Garfield to the House of Representatives while he served, and he left the army in December 1863. Chamberlain stayed until the war ended, with numerous wounds that stayed with him for life, and was then elected governor of Maine to four consecutive one-year terms. Garfield succeeded in politics, while Chamberlain's hopes of becoming a U.S. senator were blocked. Both couples lost children early, and both men became sought-after speakers on the lecture circuit. Had Garfield survived, the article says, they might have met on his New England visit, and could have become fast friends.

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