An Agreeable First Impression: John Rawlins
Today, February 13, is the birthday of Brig. Gen. John Rawlins, Ulysses S. Grant’s chief of staff and, later, Grant’s first secretary of war.
I recently came across this great description of Rawlins penned by Theodore Lyman, a member of George Gordon Meade’s staff. Lyman, as a rule, didn’t like most of Grant’s staff, mostly because of the tension that developed as Grant overshadowed Meade. That makes his initial description of Rawlins all the more excellent.
It comes from May 12, 1864, at Spotsylvania Court House, on the morning of the attack against the Mule Shoe Salient. “At about daylight, we all stood around Grant’s Headq’rs in the woods on the opposite side of the road, anxiously waiting for news,” Lyman recounted. Shortly thereafter, word arrived that Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock achieved a breakthrough. Wrote Lyman:
Gen. Rawlins, with his hard hollow voice, broke out into loud, coarse exultation “By G—! They are done!—Hancock will just drive them to H—!” He is a man who gives a very disagreeable first impression; loud and profane in talk, fiery and impulsive of temper, and with a general demeanor of the bad “Western” kind. In truth he is a man of a cool, clear judgment, and well gifted with common sense; despite his temper too, he is a good hearted man. His flashes of anger & of over confidence depend perhaps on his pulmonary tendency; for he seems hopelessly consumptive.
Rawlins had contracted TB in 1863. It would eventually kill him, on Sept. 6, 1869, just five months into his tenure as secretary of war. He was 38.
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Meade’s Army: The Private Notebooks of Lt. Col. Theodore Lyman, edited by David W. Lowe (Kent State University Press, 2007), 153.
Not to take away from Rawlins, who died too early, but it’s also a statement as to Hancock’s reputation. I read a private’s diary: he wrote about normal daily stuff, but one thing he noted was once being near Hancock’s HQ, that was a highlight worth writing down. Wounded in battle, riding in front of his troops during a cannon storm, he was a man’s man. Hancock got lucky at the Wilderness a week earlier. If Longstreet had been slightly wounded at the Wilderness, instead of critically wounded, Hancock may not have been able to press that attack at the Mule Shoe. Learned that from a Youtube presentation about how Longstreet got wounded, thank you Chris.
Drive them to home? heaven? hallelujah? Harrison House? Halvalla? (like maybe he was dislexic?) Drive them to heck. It had to be heck. that makes the most sense. Those respectable Victorians have to make me guess about what the person actually was s—–
Great article! Rawlins probably contracted TB from his first wife, Emily Smith Rawlins, who died of the disease in 1861 at the age of 28. Rawlins met his second wife, Mary Hurlbut Rawlins, in Vicksburg after the siege of the city ended. Mary was northern born but was living in Vicksburg and working as governess for the Lum family in the city. She died of TB as well in 1874 and may have picked it up from her husband before his death.