T. J. W. Sullivan to Richard Yates

Ashkum, Iroquois Co., Ills.

Nov. 19th, 1861

Hon. Richard Yates

My dear Governor:

Inclosed you will please find letters respectively from my estimable friends Judge Norton and Dr. Blades – together with certificate from the captains of 25th reg't Ill Volunteers, from the character of all which I feel warranted in addressing the Chief Magistrate of my adopted home. I feel the more free to do this, honord sir, from the high & hearty appreciation I cherish alike for your talents, princ- iples and administrative capacity displaid in the conspicuous part you have borne in the preservation of our afflicted nation. The matter to which I most respectfully invite your attention may be found in the following brief statment - I have the most indubitable evidence that a meeting called in

St. Louis for that purpose, by Col. Color, I was fairly and legitimatly chosen by 31 commissiond officers as chaplean to said reg't. And yet in direct contravention of the demands of common courtesy – the law, the moral interests, rights and preferences of at least eight tenths of said reg't – another person is appointed by Col Color. I am well advised of the fact that the gentleman thus appointed dose not & cannot comm- and the respect or confidence, at best, of more than a fragment of the regiment. I trust that I need hardly assure your excellancy that had this gentleman been recognized as the choice of a majority of those whose wishes should unquestion ably be consulted, no earthly consideration could induce an attempt upon my part to superceed him. Knowing, however, as I certainly do the exact reverse of this to be the case, I owe it no less to the

claims and benefits of our holy Christianity than to a noble self-sacrificing soldiery to earnestly solicit your official interposition in the correction of a flagrant wrong. A voluntary exile from the oppressive exactions of my native, yet dishonored home – a comparative stranger in a strange land – having served the Republican cause undeviatingly from its organization, and having made no inconsiderable sacrifices in my abandonent of the South, I cannot but indulge the belief that these facts together with my unequivocal claim to the position in question, will insure such action upon the part of your excellancy as will lead to a proper result. I would not fail, sir, to appreciate the probability that you are burdened with various cares of state seemingly of greater magnitude & pressing your attention with greater urgency than the matter here presented. I am

nevertheless persuaded that you cannot feel indifferent to the moral & spiritual welfare of a thousand Illinois patriots. I am well convinced, honord sir, that your kind and timely intervention could either secure my rights in the 25th or obtain for me a like position in an independent regiment now forming in Chicago.

Your earliest possible attention will secure the lasting & gratefull appreciation of your excellancy’s obedient servant

T.J.W. Sullivan

P.S. May I ask the additional favor of the return by your secretary of the inclosed papers.

T.J.W.S.