Civil War
After his arrival in Dubuque, Allison took a prominent part in the politics of the nascent Republican Party. Allison was a delegate to the 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago, which nominated Abraham Lincoln for President of the United States.
During the subsequent Civil War, he was on the staff of Iowa Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood, who ordered him to help the state raise regiments for the war. He personally helped raise four regiments. He was given the rank of lieutenant colonel during the war, although it was unlikely he actually served in uniform.
In 1862, in the midst of the war, Allison was elected to the United States House of Representatives as the representative of Iowa's newly-created 3rd congressional district. As a congressman and member of the House Ways and Means Committee, he pushed for higher tariffs.
Read more about this topic: William B. Allison
Famous quotes related to civil war:
“The United States is just now the oldest country in the world, there always is an oldest country and she is it, it is she who is the mother of the twentieth century civilization. She began to feel herself as it just after the Civil War. And so it is a country the right age to have been born in and the wrong age to live in.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“A war between Europeans is a civil war.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)