He
was also a candidate for elector on the Douglas ticket. When Sumter was
fired upon and the integrity of the Union threatened, there was no man
more ready to serve his country than he. I wrote at once asking him to
accept the position of assistant adjutant-general with the rank of
captain, on my staff. He was about entering the service as major of a
new regiment then organizing in the north-western part of the State; but
he threw this up and accepted my offer.
Neither Hillyer nor Lagow proved to have any particular taste or special
qualifications for the duties of the soldier, and the former resigned
during the Vicksburg campaign; the latter I relieved after the battle of
Chattanooga. Rawlins remained with me as long as he lived, and rose to
the rank of brigadier general and chief-of-staff to the General of the
Army--an office created for him--before the war closed. He was an able
man, possessed of great firmness, and could say "no" so emphatically to
a request which he thought should not be granted that the person he was
addressing would understand at once that there was no use of pressing
the matter. General Rawlins was a very useful officer in other ways
than this. I became very much attached to him.
Shortly after my promotion I was ordered to Ironton, Missouri, to
command a district in that part of the State, and took the 21st
Illinois, my old regiment, with me.
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