Philip S . Post Philip Sidney Post ( March 19 , 1833 – January 6 , 1895 ) was an American diplomat , politician , and decorated Army officer . He served as a United States Representative from Illinois for eight years , from 1887 to 1895 . During the American Civil War , he was a Union Army general and earned the Medal of Honor . Biography . Born in , P . Sidney Post pursued classical studies and graduated from Union College , Schenectady , New York , in 1855 . He studied at the Poughkeepsie Law School and was admitted to the bar in Illinois in 1856 . He then traveled through the northwest and took up his abode in Kansas , where he practised law and also established and edited a newspaper . At the beginning of the American Civil War , he entered the Union Army and served with the 59th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment as a 2nd lieutenant . He was promoted through the ranks to colonel in 1862 . He was severely wounded at the Battle of Pea Ridge , and made his way with much suffering , and under many difficulties , to St . Louis , Missouri . Before fully recovering , he joined his regiment in front of Corinth , Mississippi , and was assigned to the command of a brigade . From May 1862 until the close of the war , he was constantly at the front . In the Army of the Cumberland , as first organized , he commanded the 1st brigade , 1st division , of the 20th Army Corps from its formation to its dissolution . He began the Battle of Stones River , drove back the enemy several miles , and captured Leetown . During the Atlanta campaign , he was transferred to Thomas J . Wood ' s division of the 4th Army Corps , and when that general was wounded at the Battle of Lovejoy ' s Station , Post took charge of the division , and with it opposed the progress of the Confederates toward the north . On December 16 , 1864 , in a charge on Overton Hill , during the Battle of Nashville , a grape shot crushed through his hip , making what was for some days thought to be a mortal wound . On March 11 , 1865 , President Abraham Lincoln nominated , and the U . S . Senate confirmed , Tracy for appointment to the brevet grade of brigadier general of volunteers , to rank from December 16 , 1864 . After the surrender at Appomattox Court House , he was appointed to the command of the western district of Texas , where there was then a concentration of troops on the Mexican border . He remained there until near the start of 1866 , when the withdrawal of the French from Mexico removed all danger of military complications . He was then earnestly recommended by Gen . George H . Thomas and others , under whom he had served , for the appointment of colonel in the regular army . But he did not wish to remain in the army , and he resigned and returned to Illinois . He was mustered out of the volunteers on December 8 , 1865 . Post received the Medal of Honor on March 8 , 1893 , for his actions at the Battle of Nashville . He was appointed consul to Vienna in 1866 , and promoted to consul general to Austria - Hungary in 1874 , where he served until his resignation in 1879 . He was the commander of the Grand Army of the Republic ' s Department of Illinois in 1886 . Post was elected as a Republican to the Fiftieth and to the four succeeding Congresses and served from March 4 , 1887 , until his death before the close of the Fifty - third Congress , in Washington , D . C . , on January 6 , 1895 . He was interred in Hope Cemetery , Galesburg , Illinois .