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b'James Garfield was the last president born in a log cabin, and was raised by a poor widow on Ohio\\u2019s rugged Western Reserve. By his late twenties, he had become a respected preacher, state senator, and college president, and, after the Civil War broke out, joined the Union Army to help eradicate the \\u201cmonstrous injustice of human slavery.\\u201d Soon Garfield was the youngest general fighting for the Union, and before war\\u2019s end was its youngest Congressman\\u2014as well as one of its most progressive. He helped establish equal citizenship and voting rights for Black Americans, and became one of the most powerful leaders of the postwar Republican Party. By 1880, Garfield was not only Minority Leader of the House, but also a practicing Supreme Court attorney, the founder of the Department of Education, the creator of a proof of the Pythagorean theorem, a Senator-elect, and (unwillingly) the Republican nominee for President. A more compelling \\u201cAmerican Dream\\u201d story among Presidents does not exist.

Garfield\\u2019s personal achievements are even more notable given the turmoil surrounding his ascent to power. He was the only major American politician who held national office for all of Reconstruction and the start of the Gilded Age. A crucial pragmatist of a divided era, he even brokered the peaceful but controversial settlement of the country\\u2019s first disputed Presidential election in 1876. \\u201cTo be an extreme man is doubtless comfortable,\\u201d Garfield once remarked before his assassination. \\u201cIt is painful to see so many sides to a subject.\\u201d The parallels between his time and our own are easy to spot. To explore forgotten aspects of Garfield\\u2019s life is today\\u2019s guest, C.W. Goodyear, author of \\u201cPresident Garfield: From Radical to Unifier.\\u201d'