Eight Federal generals came from the small town of Galena, Illinois (15,000 population). They probably owed their rank to their friendship with U. S. Grant, the most celebrated wartime citizen of the place.
The list included John Aaron Rawlins, who was Grant’s chief of staff; the Seneca Chief, Ely S. Parker, an engineer who became Grant’s secretary and postwar commissioner of Indian Affairs, Jasper Maltby, a gunsmith said to have been the inventor of a telescopic sight; and Augustus L. Chetlain, a storekeeper who became Consul to Brussels and a leading Chicago banker.
