- Le Grand B. Cannon, Union Colonel and Brigadier General, Vermont Volunteers - Personal Reminiscences of the Rebellion 1861-1866, by Le Grand B. Cannon, PRIVATELY PRINTED ; burr printing house NEW YORK 1895 Binding: Hardcover association copy INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR ON FFEP to General C. H. Carlton U.S.A. with respect ,1899 From the Burlington Free Press upon Cannon’s death: Cannon became an active member of the Union Defense Commission New York, which rendered such splendid service to the government In that crisis. He soon exchanged service as a citizen for active service in the Army. It had happened that during the Canadian rebellion of 1838, Major- General John E. Wool, U. S. A., was in command of the Department of the East and charged with the maintenance or neutrality upon the frontier of Vermont and New York. Knowing young Cannons spirit and capacity General Wool appointed him upon his staff. When the Civil War broke out, General Wool again called Mr. Cannon to his side as a volunteer aide, with the rank of major, soon followed by his promotion to a colonelcy. In the United States army. He remained on General Wool's stare as his confidential aide de camp for two years. After aiding in the organization and equipment of troops for the defense of New York in April, 1861, he accompanied General Wool when he was placed In command of the department of Virginia, with headquarters at Fortress Monroe, then the greatest fortress and most important command in the Bast. There he rendered constant and invaluable service to his superior officer and to the Union. Among other things, he visited the ironclad Monitor just previous to Its fight with the Merrimac He witnessed that memorable encounter and at the request of the navy department wrote an account of it which was afterward made a department record and reprinted in Appleton's Cyclopedia and in pamphlet form. He was the leading member of the military commission appointed to investigate and report upon the conditions at Fortress Monroe consequent upon the great influx of fugitive slaves in the second year of the war. The report which he drafted was the foundation of the military orders of General Wool regarding the contrabands and was . practically the enunciation of an emancipation proclamation nearly a year before the issuance of President Lincoln's edict. During the Civil War It was Colonel Cannon's privilege to be brought into confidential relations with Abraham Lincoln and his most trusted advisors, and his counsels were frequently sought upon matters of high concern.