Bill Severn: Teacher, Soldier, President: The Life of James A. Garfield, New York: Ives Washburn, 1964, 177 pages, hardcover). Garfield had the shortest (and "accidental") presidency, as he was gunned down by a disgruntled job seeker in 1881 after four months of office. But what is interesting is his personality and ambition. A geek by the standards of the day, be became a kind of young Renaissance man late in his teens. Clumsy at odd jobs, he was very determined, and at age 17 (around 1848) he was teaching public school in Ohio, and, according to the custom of the times, living in the homes of parents. He would go to college, and teach again. Imagine a whiz kid from "It's Academic" or perhaps David Madden from "Jeopardy" (or maybe young free speech litigant Joseph Frederick, who is an English teacher now) as your English or even math teacher and you get the idea of his kind of charisma.
He got what amounts to a "direct commission" in the Union Army in the Civil War, and actually, once a senator, helped eliminate the $300 buyout from conscription, a big moral issue of the day. He was accused of corruption which he probably did not commit, and he was accused of helping author the so-called "Wade-Davis Manifesto" which would have been very punitive for the South. As an intellectual, he may have been a bit distant from the practical demands of role-model leadership, although as a teacher he was generally well-liked (despite some discipline problems).