George S. Boutwell was born on January 28, 1818 in Brookline, Massachusetts. According to his autobiographical memoir, Boutwell was raised on his family's farm in Lunenburg and attended public schools until the age of seventeen. During the summer months he worked barefooted, tending oxen and picking chestnuts. Boutwell was educated in arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and Latin grammar.
Boutwell attended the Peace Conference of 1861 in Washington, D.C. which attempted to prevent the impending Civil War, and served as a liaison between the federal government and Massachusetts Governor John Albion Andrew in April 1861. In the peace conference, he angrily rejected Southern proposals favoring the extension of slavery and its enforcement in northern states, arguing that "the Union is not worth preserving" if such measures are needed to do so. In June and July 1862, Boutwell served on a military commission in the Department of War, investigating irregularities in the quartermaster's department of General John C. Fremont, who commanded the Union Army's Department of the West. Assistant Quartermaster Reuben Hatch, whose brother was a political supporter of President Abraham Lincoln, had been defrauding the department, and the commission was established on Lincoln's order to forestall a court martial. Boutwell spent two months in the army camp at Cairo, Illinois, under conditions he described as "disagreeable to an extent that cannot be realized easily" because of flooding and unsanitary conditions. The commission cleared Hatch. In July 1862, while he was still in Cairo, Boutwell was appointed the first Commissioner of Internal Revenue by President Lincoln. He spent his eight months in that post organizing the new Internal Revenue Bureau. He was described by Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase as having the "highest obtainable ability and integrity", and oversaw the growth of the bureau to some 4,000 employees; it was the largest single office department in the government. Boutwell decided in 1862 to run for the United States Congress. The campaign was dominated by the issue of emancipation, which Boutwell strongly advocated. He won a comfortable (55%-40%) victory over Charles R. Train, a conservative former Republican. He resigned as internal revenue commissioner early in 1863.

Q: What did George do in the early civil war years?
A: Boutwell attended the Peace Conference of 1861

Q: What was his role in preventing it?
A: served as a liaison between the federal government and Massachusetts Governor John Albion
what was his reason for rejection?
arguing that "the Union is not worth preserving" if such measures are needed to do so. "the Union is not worth preserving" if such measures are needed to do so. arguing that "the Union is not worth preserving" if such measures are needed to do so. arguing that "the Union is not worth preserving" if such measures are needed to do so.
arguing that "the Union is not worth preserving" if such measures are needed to do so.