William S. Rosecrans Papers

It is a privilege to respond to the invitation of the University Librarian, Lawrence Clark Powell, to write a brief foreword for the Guide to the Papers of General William Starke Rosecrans.William Starke Rosecrans was born in Kingston, Ohio, in 1819; graduated from West Point, 1842; resigned from U.S. army, 1854; organized Preston Coal Oil Company, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1857; commissioned Brigadier General in 1861 after outbreak of Civil War; commanded the Army of the Cumberland during the Tullahoma campaign and at the battles of Stone's river and Chickamauga; resigned from U.S. Army, 1867; moved to Los Angeles, California and became advocate for railroad building and Mexican trade in the West; appointed U.S. Minister to Mexico, 1868; during 1870s developed mines in Nevada, the Southwest, and Sonora, Mexico; Democrat, U.S. Congress, 1881-85; Register of the U.S. Treasury, 1885-93; retired to ranch near Los Angeles in 1893 and died on March 11, 1898; interment at Arlington National Cemetary, Arlington, Virginia.The Rosecrans Papers span nearly a century of America's past and comprise correspondence and papers of three generations of the family. There are sources in the papers for biographies of General Rosecrans; of his son, Adrian Louis, who was a member of the pioneer congregation of American Catholic missionaries, the Paulist Fathers; and of his brother, Sylvester H. Rosecrans, who rose in the Catholic hierarchy to become Bishop of Columbus, Ohio.