Rawlins' loyalty to Grant found its first expression that winter when a crooked contractor whom Rawlins had expelled from the department spread rumors that Grant was a drunk. Rawlins hastened to squelch them, assuring Congressman Washburne that, if ever Grant did drink, Rawlins would be the first to speak out. "I regard his interest as my interest," he declared, "all that concerns his reputation concerns me; I love him as a father; I respect him because I have studied him well, and the more I know him the more I respect and love him. But I pledge you my word, that should General Grant at any time become an intemperate man or a habitual drunkard, I will ask to be removed from duty on his staff or resign my commission."

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During the Fort Henry and Fort Donelson campaigns, Rawlins' duties extended little beyond keeping an eye on Grant and writing orders. But in the confused fury of Shiloh he emerged as a force to be reckoned with. Raw­lins and Grant were in Savannah, Tenn., on the morning of April 6, 1862, when the rumble of cannon fire told them the Army of the Tennessee, camped upriver (south) near Pittsburg Landing, was under attack by Albert Sidney Johnston's Army of Mississippi. Rawlins set off with Grant on the steamer Tigress for Pittsburg Landing, where they found hundreds of dazed soldiers huddled around the bluff. The two rode forward at 9 a.m. to inspect the five divisions in action. Grant then sent Rawlins back to Tigress to write orders calling up Lew Wallace's division, camped nearly six miles away at Crump's Landing.

Rawlins scratched out a note to the chief quartermaster to find Wallace, then returned to the front and stayed with Grant under fire until midafternoon when, despairing of Wallace, Grant ordered him and fellow staff officer James B. McPherson to locate the Indianan. They found Wallace on a back lane, four miles from the fighting. Furious at the "cool and leisurely" pace of his march, Rawlins marshaled his choicest oaths to implore Wallace to make haste.

"The roar of battle swelled from the direction of Pittsburg Landing," Rawlins recalled. "We knew that it was our heavy guns, and that the enemy had attained a nearness to the river that filled our minds with terrible apprehension." As Wallace's division drew nearer the battlefield, he continued to move too slowly to suit an always exacting and then overexcited Rawlins. Grant's loyal aide never forgave Wallace for what he considered a gross neglect of duty. McPherson, in fact, had to talk him out of arresting Wallace on the spot.

Rawlins reached the landing with Wallace's advance at sunset, and was reassured by Grant that the Rebel attack could be stopped. Grant was right, but that costly victory cast a cloud over him that lingered until the fall of Vicksburg. Rawlins never forgave Wallace, and stood by Grant in condemning him, believing his presence before nightfall on April 6 might have hastened a Federal victory the next day.

In the 15 months between Shiloh and the final operations against Vicksburg, Rawlins—who became chief of staff on November 1, 1862—found new challenges in his self-ordained role as Grant's protector. Major General Henry Halleck had concentrated the Western armies to capture Corinth, Miss., and he relegated Grant to second in command of the whole: "fifth wheel to a coach," as Grant put it. Grant wanted to resign, but Sherman and Rawlins persuaded him to stay on. When Halleck was called East, Grant assumed command of both the armies of the Tennessee and the Mississippi. Sherman and Rawlins had rescued him from almost certain military oblivion.

Rawlins' next task was to diffuse doubts about Grant's competence and sobriety, which grew, in early 1863, as Grant's offensive against Vicksburg foundered. Major General John McClernand, a War Democrat whose corps operated independently at Vicksburg under Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton's authori­ty, was angling to replace Grant. Brigadier General Cadwallader Washburn wrote Congressman Washburne, his brother, that Grant was unsuited to high command, and that his staff officers were imbeciles. Only Rawlins had any military ability, he said. The letter found its way to Abraham Lincoln, and Stanton decided to send Charles Dana, a former journalist destined to become assistant secretary of war, to investigate.

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