Join Sterling Rock Falls Historical Society on Sunday, September 11, 2022, at 2:00 p.m., for what promises to be an interesting program, at the Lincoln Learning Center, 611 E. 3rd Street, Sterling, IL. Based and the biography Gen. John A. Rawlins: No Ordinary Man, the presentation focuses on the relationship between John Rawlins and Ulysses S. Grant, spanning eight years, from Galena, IL, to the Executive Mansion.
Rawlins served faithfully as Grant’s friend, advisor, Staff Officer, and first Secretary of War. He was also Grant’s trusted emissary on several sensitive missions. Although Rawlins was a National figure in his day, he is scarcely referenced today and, then, usually as the nag who kept Grant sober. That characterization is unfair to both Rawlins and Grant.
In this presentation some rare insights into the Grant-Rawlins relationship will be highlighted. Learn fresh perspectives into Rawlins’s interventions to protect Grant, from being brought down by drink and, especially, rumors circulated about his drinking–by those hoping to damage him.
The Presenter: Allen J. Ottens is Professor Emeritus of Counselor Education and Supervision, Northern Illinois University. He is also a licensed Psychologist, who served on the staffs of several university counseling centers.
One of the reasons he wrote the first serious biography of General Rawlins in over a century (General John A. Rawlins: No Ordinary Man; published by Indiana University Press) was to finally give him his rightful due. After all, consider the spate of biographies about Grant that have appeared just in the past couple of decades. No Ordinary Man has garnered impressive critical reviews and was chosen by the Army Historical Foundation for its 2021 “Distinguished Writing Award in Biography.”