John Aaron Rawlins (13 February 1831-6 September 1869) was the United States Secretary of War from 13 March to 6 September 1869, succeeding John Schofield and preceding William Tecumseh Sherman.
Biography[]
John Aaron Rawlins was born in Galena, Illinois in 1831, and, while he lacked formal education, he educated himself and became a lawyer in 1854. He aligned himself with the Democratic Party and supported Stephen A. Douglas' 1860 presidential bid, and he returned to his law practice after Republican Abraham Lincoln defeated Douglas. At the start of the American Civil War, he gave a stirring pro-Union speech and became fast friends with Ulysses S. Grant. Rawlins persuaded Grant to raise troops for the Union Army, and, when Grant was recommissioned into the US Army, Rawlins became one of his staff officers. Rawlins rose in the ranks with Grant, though he occasionally disagreed with Grant over orders such as his expulsion of the Jews from Grant's military district during the Siege of Vicksburg. In 1863, Rawlins was appointed Grant's emissary to Washington DC, but he soon fell ill with tuberculosis. He took part in an 1867 expedition to Wyoming in a bid to improve his health, and the town of Rawlins was named in his honor. Rawlins wished to stay at Grant's side after he became President rather than be appointed to a command in the Arizona Territory, and he served as Secretary of War in 1869, having become a Republican a year earlier. Rawlins persuaded Grant to crack down on Mormon separatism in Utah and strongly supported Cuba's independence struggle against Spain during the Ten Years' War, and he approved the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge before dying of tuberculosis in Washington, devastating Grant.