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. Several other regiments were
ordered to the same destination about the same time. Ironton is on the
Iron Mountain railroad, about seventy miles south of St. Louis, and
situated among hills rising almost to the dignity of mountains. When I
reached there, about the 8th of August, Colonel B. Gratz Brown
--afterwards Governor of Missouri and in 1872 Vice-Presidential candidate
--was in command. Some of his troops were ninety days' men and their
time had expired some time before. The men had no clothing but what
they had volunteered in, and much of this was so worn that it would
hardly stay on. General Hardee--the author of the tactics I did not
study--was at Greenville some twenty-five miles further south, it was
said, with five thousand Confederate troops.
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