Citizen-General: Jacob Dolson Cox and the Civil War Era

by Eugene D. Schmiel

A History Book Club Reading Selection

The wrenching events of the Civil War transformed not only the United States but also the men unexpectedly called on to lead their fellow citizens in this first modern example of total war. Jacob Dolson Cox, a former divinity student with no formal military training, was among those who rose to the challenge. In a conflict in which “political generals” often proved less than competent, Cox, the consummate citizen general, emerged as one of the best commanders in the Union army.

During his school days at Oberlin College, no one could have predicted that the intellectual, reserved, and bookish Cox possessed what he called in his writings the “military aptitude” to lead men effectively in war. His military career included helping secure West Virginia for the Union; jointly commanding the left wing of the Union army at the critical Battle of Antietam; breaking the Confederate supply line and thereby precipitating the fall of Atlanta; and holding the defensive line at the Battle of Franklin, a Union victory that effectively ended the Confederate threat in the West.

At a time when there were few professional schools other than West Point, the self-made man was the standard for success; true to that mode, Cox fashioned himself into a Renaissance man. In each of his vocations and avocations—general, governor, cabinet secretary, university president, law school dean, railroad president, historian, and scientist—he was recognized as a leader. Cox’s greatest fame, however, came to him as the foremost participant historian of the Civil War. His accounts of the conflict are to this day cited by serious scholars and serve as a foundation for the interpretation of many aspects of the war.

352 pages, Paperback

First published March 17, 2014

Reviews

[Edgar Raines · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a first-rate biography of an often forgotten, under appreciated citizen soldier. Jacob D. Cox commanded a corps at Antietam and "the troops on the line" at Franklin. After the war, he commanded a district in North Carolina, briefly, during the first days of reconstruction. Leaving the Army, he was elected governor of Ohio, but he found it impossible to submerge his policy differences with radical wing of the Republican Party and declined to stand for re-election. He served as the first secretary of the interior in the Grant admission but his uncompromising dedication to implement civil service reform in his department eventually led Grant to ask for his resignation. Cox led the liberal Republican revolt from the party in the election of 1872, and thereafter, aside from one term in Congress, abandoned politics for the law, teaching, and University administration. His great achievement was as a historian. He wrote what stood for a century as the definitive account of the Atlanta campaign. Schmiel gives this "Renaissance Man of the Gilded Age" his due in a biography that is well written and well researched in both primary and secondary sources. Originally written as a Ph.D. dissertation at Ohio State in 1969, the author, who pursued a Foreign Service career, has updated his text to reflect the historiography of the last forty-five years. His readers are the beneficiaries of what was clearly a labor of love. I highly recommend Citizen-General to anyone interested in the Civil War, Reconstruction, or the Gilded Age.

[Stephen Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps Cox is unjustly obscure in the history of the Civil War. This is most interesting in two stages: the discussion of Cox's services in West Virginia and in the discussion of Cox as a historian of the war. The details of training and moving out from Ohio into Western Virginia too often get short shrift in histories and are well covered. The coverage of Cox's post-war career is perhaps appropriately diffident. More detail would be better. The discussion of Cox's historiographical importance might be better as a separate essay, wherein historians could be named and discussed rather than simply referred to as "a historian".