I received the assurance that duty would be offered to him; and afterwards the Secretary told me that he had offered Buell an assignment and that the latter had declined it, saying that it would be degradation to accept the assignment offered.

I understood afterwards that he refused to serve under either Sherman or Canby because he had ranked them both.
Both graduated before him and ranked him in the old army.

Sherman ranked him as a brigadier-general.

All of them ranked me in the old army, and Sherman and Buell did as brigadiers.

The worst excuse a soldier can make for declining service is that he once ranked the commander he is ordered to report to.
On the 23d of March I was back in Washington, and on the 26th took up my headquarters at Culpeper Court-House, a few miles south of the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac.
Although hailing from Illinois myself, the State of the President, I never met Mr.Lincoln until called to the capital to receive my commission as lieutenant-general.