In the audience was 32-year-old Philip Paul Bliss,[21] who had just met Whittle and traveled to Rockford to sing at the latter's request.[22] The Rockford Register carried a report of the convention in its edition of Saturday, 30 April 1870, but it did not, alas, report Whittle's remarks on Allatoona, although it stated that he spoke several times. The Register did report, however, that both Bliss and his wife attended the convention. This was the beginning of a close relationship between Bliss and Whittle that was to last until Bliss's sudden death not quite seven years later.
Whittle was a Civil War veteran who had been cited "in terms of high commendation" in the Vicksburg campaign, in which he received a wound in the right forearm. Later, in the Atlanta campaign, he was on Major General Oliver O. Howard's staff in the Army of the Tennessee and won his majority by brevet promotion at the close of the war.[23]
Although Howard recalled in 1899 that Whittle "stood beside General Sherman as my representative on the top of Kennesaw" during the
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