Subsequent to the war General
Badeau having heard of this letter applied to the War Department for a
copy of it. The letter could not be found and no one recollected ever
having seen it. I took no copy when it was written. Long after the
application of General Badeau, General Townsend, who had become
Adjutant-General of the Army, while packing up papers preparatory to the
removal of his office, found this letter in some out-of-the-way place.
It had not been destroyed, but it had not been regularly filed away.
I felt some hesitation in suggesting rank as high as the colonelcy of a
regiment, feeling somewhat doubtful whether I would be equal to the
position. But I had seen nearly every colonel who had been mustered in
from the State of Illinois, and some from Indiana, and felt that if they
could command a regiment properly, and with credit, I could also.
Having but little to do after the muster of the last of the regiments
authorized by the State legislature, I asked and obtained of the
governor leave of absence for a week to visit my parents in Covington,
Kentucky, immediately opposite Cincinnati. General McClellan had been
made a major-general and had his headquarters at Cincinnati. In reality
I wanted to see him. I had known him slightly at West Point, where we
served one year together, and in the Mexican war.
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