US politician, 20th President (1881) of the USA. He served in the American Civil War, retiring as a major-general, and then entered national politics as a Republican Congressman (1863–80). One of the politicians smeared with the Crédit Mobilier of America financial scandal, he was rescued by James G. Blaine. During the Republicans’ feud between the self-styled “Half Breeds” (members of that wing of the Republican Party that favoured a conciliatory policy towards the South, and advocated civil service reforms) and “Stalwarts” (their Republican opponents), he emerged as the compromise candidate to fight, and win, the presidential election of 1880. His assassination within months of taking office by a disappointed office-seeker sealed the fate of the Stalwarts and ensured support for civil service reform in the Pendleton Act (1883).