William Carlin William Passmore Carlin ( November 23 , 1829 – October 4 , 1903 ) was a career soldier from the state of Illinois who served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War and then in the postbellum United States Army . He led a brigade and then a division in the Army of the Tennessee in several of the most significant campaigns of the Western Theater of operations . Early life and career . William P . Carlin was born in Rich Woods in Greene County , Illinois , and educated in the local schools . His parents were William B . Carlin ( 1804 - 1850 ) and Mary Carlin ( née Goode , 1805 - 1888 ) . He received an appointment to the United States Military Academy in West Point , New York , and graduated in 1850 , ranking 20th out of 44 . Among his classmates were future six Civil War generals , including Gouverneur K . Warren and William L . Cabell . Carlin was appointed a brevet second lieutenant in the 6th U . S . Infantry and assigned to duty on the Western frontier at Fort Snelling and other subsequent posts . He spent much of the next decade on garrison duty , although he participated in several minor campaigns and expeditions to quell warring Plains Indians , including William S . Harney ' s 1855 campaign against the Sioux ( for which he was promoted to first lieutenant ) and the 1857 expedition of Edwin V . Sumner against the Cheyenne tribe . He then was involved in the Utah War in 1858 in a U . S . Army force led by Albert Sidney Johnston , a future Confederate general . He rose to the rank of captain in the Regular Army . From September 1859 through May 1860 , he commanded Fort Bragg in California . Civil War service . Shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War in early 1861 , Carlin was commissioned on August 5 by the Governor of Illinois , Richard Yates , as the colonel and first commander of the new 38th Illinois Infantry . He and his regiment were shipped to Missouri to help stabilize the region under Federal control . He participated in the Battle of Fredericktown on October 21 , where his men help rout part of the Missouri State Guard under M . Jeff Thompson . As a reward for his performance , in November Carlin took command of the Southeastern Missouri District , a post he held through the winter into early spring of 1862 when he was assigned to lead a brigade of infantry . He first led his brigade into combat during the Siege of Corinth , Mississippi , in May of that year . Fighting against the Confederates of Braxton Bragg during the autumn Kentucky Campaign , Carlin received multiple commendations for bravery for a successful charge at the Battle of Perryville that almost cut off the Confederate line of retreat , but it was called back , under protest , by his corps commander . After the battle he protested the lack of recognition his command received and privately chided division commander Lovell H . Rousseau for " crawling around trees on his belly [ which ] is not such conduct as soldiers admire . " Carlin was promoted to brigadier general in the Union Army on November 29 , 1862 . A month later , his brigade in the Army of the Cumberland suffered high casualties during the Battle of Stones River in Tennessee . For the next year and a half , Carlin commanded the 2nd Brigade , 1st Division of the XX Corps . He participated in the Tullahoma Campaign and the subsequent Battle of Chickamauga . In the autumn of 1863 , he fought at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge during the Battles for Chattanooga . In the summer of 1864 , he led his brigade in the Atlanta Campaign , taking a brief furlough during the campaign to return to Illinois to be married . He was promoted to divisional command before the Battle of Jonesboro in September . He then took part in Sherman ' s March to the Sea and the capture of Savannah , Georgia . In early 1865 , Carlin ' s division was involved in the Carolinas Campaign . At the Battle of Bentonville on March 19 , it conducted a " probing attack " that was routed by a major Confederate counterattack in which General Carlin narrowly escaped capture . At the end of the war , he received brevet appointments to major general in both the volunteer Union Army and the Regular Army . Postbellum career . Carlin mustered out of the volunteers in the summer of 1865 and returned to the Regular Army as the major of the 16th U . S . Infantry . He was the assistant commissioner of the Tennessee office of the Freedmen ' s Bureau from 1867 until 1868 . He was promoted to colonel in April 1882 and later to brigadier general , and held various commands at army posts throughout the country . He put down a miners ' strike in the Idaho Territory and served in several posts in the South during Reconstruction . Carlin retired from the Army in 1893 after 43 years of service . He wrote and published his autobiography , " Memoirs of Brigadier General William Passmore Carlin , USA " , which detailed his long career . While traveling on a train near Whitehall , Montana , in 1903 , Carlin died suddenly . His body was shipped home to Carrollton , Illinois , for burial . In memoriam . The town of Carlin , Nevada , was named for him , as was the Gen . William Passmore Carlin Camp # 25 , Department of California & Pacific , Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War . He is also remembered by the Gen . William P . Carlin Chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of the Union 1861 - 1865 .