Political appointments in the United States federal government until 1883. In 1820 Congress limited federal administrators to four-year terms, which led to constant turnover; by the 1860s and the Civil War, patronage had led to widespread inefficiency and political corruption. Although it used to be confined to cabinet positions, department heads, and foreign ambassadorships, by the 1860s patronage had spread to low-level government positions. This meant that when the incumbent political party lost a presidential election, the federal government underwent wholesale turnover. On July 2, 1881, Charles J. Guiteau, a disaffected and mentally unstable political office seeker, assassinated President James Garfield. This highlighted how much the
Fictional characters in the Southern Victory Series at a Birmingham, Alabama, rally. Hampton became the first president in the history of either the Confederate States or United States to be assassinated. His vice-president Burton Mitchel III was sworn in as president afterwards to finish the remainder of his six-year term. His assassination shares many similarities with the historical Beer Hall Putsch. Lieutenant Commander Roger Kimball was a submarine commander in the Confederate States Navy during the Great War. He received a Confederate Navy Cross for sinking two US gunships during a raid in a Chesapeake Bay harbor. He later was given a promotion to Commander after another