Jacob D. Cox

Jacob Dolson Cox Jr. (October 27, 1828August 4, 1900), was a statesman, lawyer, Union Army general during the American Civil War, Republican politician from Ohio, Liberal Republican Party founder, educator, author, and recognized microbiologist. He served as president of the University of Cincinnati, the 28th governor of Ohio and as United States Secretary of the Interior. As Governor of Ohio, Cox sided for a time with President Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction plan and was against African American suffrage in the South, though he supported it in Ohio. However, Cox increasingly expressed racist and segregationist viewpoints, advocating a separate colony for blacks to "work out their own salvation." Seeing himself caught between Johnson and the Radical Republicans, Cox decided not to run for reelection. He stayed out of politics for a year, though both Sherman and Grant advocated that Cox replace Stanton as Secretary of War as a means of stemming the demands for Johnson's impeachment. But Johnson declined. When Ulysses S. Grant became president, he nominated Cox Secretary of Interior, and Cox immediately accepted.

Secretary of Interior Cox implemented the first civil service reform in a federal government department, including examinations for most clerks. Grant initially supported Cox and civil service reform, creating America's first Civil Service Commission. However, Cox was opposed by Republican Party managers, who ultimately convinced Grant to cease civil service reforms in the Interior, a large department coveted for its vast Congressional patronage. President Grant and Secretary Cox were at odds over the fraudulent McGarahan Claims and the Dominican Republic annexation treaty. Secretary Cox advocated a lasting, honest, and comprehensive Indian policy legislated by Congress after the Piegan Indian massacre. Cox resigned as Secretary of Interior having been unable to gain Grant's support over civil service reform. Although Cox was a reformer, Grant had believed Cox had overstepped his authority as Secretary of Interior and had undermined his authority as president. In 1871 Cox helped found the Liberal Republicans in opposition to Grant's renomination. In 1876, Cox returned to politics and served one term as a United States Congressman from Ohio. Congressman Cox supported President Hayes's reform efforts, but his term as Congressman was unsuccessful at establishing permanent Civil Service reform.

Cox was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1870.

Cox was elected U.S. Representative (Ohio) and served in Congress from 1877 to 1879. Afterward, Cox never returned to active politics. Cox served as president and receiver of a railroad, Dean of Cincinnati Law School, and as president of the University of Cincinnati. Cox also studied microscopy and made hundreds of photo-micrographs, and in 1881 he was elected fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society. In 1882, Cox started a series of books he authored on Civil War campaigns, which remain today respected histories and memoirs. After Cox retired in 1897, he died in Massachusetts in 1900. Throughout the 20th century, Cox's life was mostly forgotten by historians, however, there has been renewed interest during the 21st century in Cox's military career as Union general during the Civil War, and his implementation of civil service while Secretary of Interior under President Grant, the first cabinet officer to do so in U.S. history.

Early years and education

Jacob Dolson Cox was born in Montreal (then located in the British colonial Province of Lower Canada) on October 27, 1828. His father and mother respectively were Jacob Dolson Cox and Thedia Redelia (Kenyon) Cox, both Americans and residents of New York. His father Jacob was of Dutch origin, descended from Hanoverian emigrant Michael Cox (Koch) who arrived in New York in 1702. His mother Thedia was descended from Revolutionary War Connecticut soldier Payne Kenyon who was there when British General John Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga in 1777. Thedia also was descended from Revolutionary War Connecticut soldier Freeman Allyn, who fought against Benedict Arnold at Groton. The Allyns were the early settlers of Salem and Manchester, Massachusetts. Thedia was additionally descended from the Elder William Brewster who emigrated to the Plymouth Colony on the Mayflower in 1620.

The elder Jacob was a New York building contractor and superintended the roof construction of the Church of Notre Dame in Montreal. Cox returned with his parents to New York City a year later. His early education included private readings with a Columbia College student. His family suffered a financial setback during the Panic of 1837, and Cox was unable to afford a college education and obtain a law degree. New York State law mandated that an alternative to college would be to work as an apprentice in the legal firm for seven years before entering the bar. In 1842, Cox entered into an apprenticeship for a legal firm and worked for two years. Having changed his mind on becoming a lawyer, Cox worked as a bookkeeper in a brokerage firm and studied mathematics and classical languages in his off hours. In 1846 he enrolled at Oberlin College in the preparatory school having been influenced by the Reverends Samuel D. Cochran and Charles Grandison Finney, leaders of Oberlin College to study theology and become a minister. Oberlin College was a progressive educational facility that was coeducational and admitted students of different races. He graduated from Oberlin with a degree in theology in 1850 or 1851. After a disagreement with his father-in-law over theology, Cox left his ministerial studies and became superintendent of the Warren, Ohio, school system. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1853.

Marriage and family

While attending Oberlin, Cox married the eldest daughter of college president Finney in 1849; at age 19, Helen Clarissa Finney was already a widow with a small son. The couple lived with the president, but Cox and his father-in-law became estranged due to theological disputes. Cox was the father of the painter Kenyon Cox; his grandson, Allyn Cox, was a noted muralist.

Political and military career

Cox was a Whig and had voted for Winfield Scott in 1852, having strong family abolitionist ties. As the Whig party dissolved, in 1855 Cox helped to organize the Republican Party in Ohio and stumped for its candidates in counties surrounding Warren. Cox was elected to the Ohio State Senate in 1859 and formed a political alliance with Senator and future President James A. Garfield, and with Governor Salmon P. Chase. While in the legislature, he accepted a commission with the Ohio Militia as a brigadier general and spent much of the winter of 1860–61 studying military science.

Civil War

thumb|180px|right|Major General Jacob D. Cox

At the start of the war, Cox was the father of six children (of the eight he and Helen eventually had), but he chose to enter Federal service as an Ohio volunteer. Cox had remained a member of the Ohio state Senate when the Civil War broke out at the Battle of Fort Sumter. Cox joined the Union Army to fulfill Ohio's Union quota of troops. On April 3, 1861, Cox was appointed Brigadier General of Ohio Volunteers by Ohio Governor William Dennision.

His first assignment was to command a recruiting camp near Columbus, and then the Kanawha Brigade of the Department of the Ohio. His brigade joined the Department of Western Virginia and fought successfully in the early Kanawha Valley campaign under Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan. In 1862 the brigade moved to Washington, D.C., and was attached to John Pope's Army of Virginia, but was delayed by McClellan and so did not see action at the Second Battle of Bull Run with the rest of the army. At the beginning of the Maryland Campaign, Cox's brigade became the Kanawha Division of the IX Corps of the Army of the Potomac. In the Maryland campaign, Cox's men took the important city of Frederick, Maryland, and Cox led the assault on the Confederates on September 14, 1862, at the Battle of South Mountain. When corps commander Maj. Gen. Jesse L. Reno was killed at South Mountain, Cox assumed command of the IX Corps. He suggested to Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, formally the commander of IX Corps, but who was commanding a two-corps "wing" of the Army, that he be allowed to return to division command, which was more in keeping with his level of military experience. Burnside refused the suggestion but kept Cox under his supervision at the Battle of Antietam. Burnside allowed Cox to execute all orders from McClellan at the battle, while he remained behind the lines. Cox's advancing IX Corps came within minutes of overwhelming the Confederate right wing at Antietam, when they were hit by A.P. Hill's division, which forced Cox to withdraw closer to Union lines.

After Antietam, Cox was appointed major general to rank from October 6, 1862, but this appointment expired the following March when the United States Senate felt that there were too many generals of this rank already serving. He was later renominated and confirmed on December 7, 1864. Most of 1863 was quiet for Cox, who was assigned to command the District of Ohio, and later the District of Michigan, in the Department of Ohio.

During the Atlanta, Franklin-Nashville, and Carolinas campaigns of 1864–65, Cox commanded the 3rd Division of the XXIII Corps of the Army of the Ohio, under Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield. His 3rd Division provided the main effort in the assault at the Battle of Utoy Creek, August 6, 1864. Cox's men broke the Confederate supply line on the Macon and Western Railroad on August 31, leading Confederate General John Bell Hood to abandon Atlanta. During Hood's Tennessee Campaign, Cox and his troops narrowly escaped being surrounded by Hood at Spring Hill, Tennessee, and he is credited with saving the center of the Union battle line at the Battle of Franklin in November 1864. Cox led the 3rd Division at the Battle of Wilmington in North Carolina, then took command of the District of Beaufort and a Provisional Corps, which he led at the Battle of Wyse Fork, before it was officially designated the XXIII Corps.

Governor of Ohio

Before mustering out of the Army on January 1, 1866, Cox was elected governor of Ohio in October 1865. He served from 1866 to 1868, and post-war issues were dealt with during his tenure. However, his regressive views on African-American suffrage and his earlier endorsement of President Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction policy caused him to decide not to run for reelection, having lacked the ability to resolve the division between Ohio Radical Republicans and President Johnson. Cox viewed opposition towards black suffrage and advocacy of segregation as a winning formula for the Ohio GOP, telling Radical Republican colleague James Garfield regarding racial equality: "On that issue, if made, you will be beaten." The Cox Administration Building (designed by Cass Gilbert) at Oberlin College is named in his honor.

Microscopy studies (1873–1895)

Around 1873, Cox became interested the study of microscopy and took it up as a recreational hobby. Cox's first studies were on fresh water forms, including rotatoria and diatomaceae. Cox displayed painstaking thoroughness and logical analysis in his microscopical studies, keeping notes of his work and observations. In 1874, Cox took up the study of photo-micrography, and in 1875 he began making a series of photo-micrographs of diatomaceae, that totaled several hundred in number.

right|thumb|Two microscope slides prepared by Cox In 1881, Cox was elected fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society. Cox gave up microscopical study in 1895, believing it damaged his eyes, but his interest in microscopy remained lifelong.

References

Sources

Books by author

Books by editor

New York Times

Internet

Journals

External links

The Department of Everything Else: Highlights of Interior History (1989)
Oberlin Alumni Association article on Finney's children
Cox's article on Antietam in Battles and Leaders