James Garfield's Extraordinary Rise

The gist

1. Garfield went from a log cabin and canal work to student janitor, became assistant professor by his second year, and was college president by 26.
2. The host stresses Garfield's view that education was salvation from poverty, and his 28 years of nightly diary entries that fill the book with quotes.
3. Garfield helped win Kentucky for the Union by splitting his small regiment into three groups and attacking from three sides to seem larger.
4. Garfield never sought the presidency; his convention speech for Sherman led delegates to nominate him with 399 votes, 20 more than needed.
5. Doctors who rejected Joseph Lister's antiseptic ideas probed Garfield's wound with unsterilized fingers and tools, and the book argues he likely would have survived untreated.