Service With the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers
by Rufus R. Dawes
Book #537C
$35.00
367 pp., introduction by Gregory Coco, photos, maps, index, hardcover, dj.
Born July 4, 1838, in Malta, Ohio, Rufus R. Dawes would one day become a war hero, businessman, and Congressman. Dawes attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison for two years before returning to Ohio to graduate from Marietta College in 1860.
When the Civil War started, Dawes was living in Juneau County, Wisconsin, and immediately raised an infantry company called the “Lemonweir Minute Men.” The company was assigned as Company K of the Sixth Wisconsin with Dawes as its captain. He was appointed major in 1862, lieutenant colonel in 1863, and colonel of the regiment in 1864. On March 15, 1865, he was appointed brevet brigadier general.
During the war Dawes served in many battles in the Eastern Theater, including Second Manassas, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Spotsylvania, and Petersburg. In all he spent sixty-two days under fire.
While on veteran furlough in January 1864, he married Mary Beman Gates. The couple had six children, one of whom, Charles G. Dawes, served as vice president of the United States under Calvin Coolidge.
After the war Rufus engaged in the wholesale lumber business in Marietta, Ohio. In 1880 he was elected to the Forty-seventh Congress, but lost his bid for reelection in 1882. He returned to Marietta and the wholesale lumber business where he remained active in Republican politics, veterans affairs, and civic activities even after ill health confined him to a wheelchair.The best narrative by a soldier from the Midwest; based on the author’s letters and diary, the work is a standard source for the Eastern battles of the Iron Brigade.
Nevins, Civil War Books
