Middle Creek, Shiloh, and Chickamauga. He was first elected to Congress in 1862 to represent Ohio's 19th District. Throughout Garfield's extended congressional service after the Civil War, he firmly supported the gold standard and gained a reputation as a skilled orator. Garfield initially agreed with Radical Republican views regarding Reconstruction, but later favored a moderate approach for civil rights enforcement for freedmen. After his nomination, Garfield met with party leaders in an attempt to heal the schism between the Stalwarts and Half-Breeds. In his formal letter to the party accepting his nomination, written with advice from party leaders, he endorsed the ideas of high tariffs and sound money, but drew particular attention to the issues of Chinese immigration and civil service reform. On both, Garfield sought a moderate path. He called for some restrictions on the former, through treaty renegotiation with the Chinese government. He straddled the divide on civil service reform, saying that he agreed with the concept, while promising to make no appointments without consulting party leaders, a position 20th-century biographer Allan Peskin called "inconsistent". As was traditional at the time, Garfield conducted a "front porch campaign", returning to his home for the duration of the contest, and leaving the actual campaigning to surrogates. Hancock Winfield Scott Hancock was born and raised in Pennsylvania. He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point and served in the Army for four decades, including service in the Mexican–American War and as a Union general in the Civil War. Known to his Army colleagues as "Hancock the Superb", he was noted in particular for his personal leadership at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, where he led the defense of Pickett's Charge, getting wounded in the process. His military service continued after the Civil War, as Hancock participated in the military Reconstruction of the South and the Army's presence at the Western frontier. During Reconstruction, he sided with then-President Andrew Johnson in working for a quick end to military occupation of the South and a return to government by the pre-war establishment. Hancock's reputation as a war hero at Gettysburg, combined with his status as a prominent Democrat with impeccable Unionist credentials and pro-states' rights views, made him a quadrennial presidential possibility. Hancock was officially notified of his nomination in July, and responded with the traditional letter of acceptance. As Garfield had, the Democratic nominee sought to cause no controversy