Editing Howell Cobb (section)

==Career==

===Congressman===
{{Further|Presidency of John Tyler|Presidency of James K. Polk|28th United States Congress|29th United States Congress|30th United States Congress}}

[[File:Lucy May Stanton, Howell Cobb, 1912, Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives.jpg|thumb|left|150px|[[Lucy May Stanton]], ''Howell Cobb'', 1912, Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives]]

Cobb was elected as [[United States Democratic Party|Democrat]] to the [[28th Congress|28th]], [[29th Congress|29th]], [[30th Congress|30th]] and [[31st Congress]]es. He was chairman of the [[U.S. House Committee on Mileage]] during the 28th Congress, and [[Speaker of the United States House of Representatives]] during the [[31st Congress]].

He sided with President [[Andrew Jackson]] on the question of [[Nullification Crisis|nullification]] (i.e. compromising on import tariffs), and was an effective supporter of President [[James K. Polk]]'s administration during the [[Mexican–American War]]. He was an ardent advocate of extending [[slavery]] into the [[Historical regions of the United States|territories]], but when the [[Compromise of 1850]] had been agreed upon, he became its staunch supporter as a Union Democrat.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Brooks|first1=R. P.|title=Howell Cobb and the Crisis of 1850|journal=The Mississippi Valley Historical Review|date=December 1917|volume=4|issue=3|pages=279–298|doi=10.2307/1888593|jstor=1888593}}</ref> He joined Georgia Whigs [[Alexander Stephens]] and [[Robert Toombs]] in a statewide campaign to elect delegates to a state convention that overwhelmingly affirmed, in the [[Georgia Platform]], that the state accepted the Compromise as the final resolution to the outstanding slavery issues. On that issue, Cobb was elected [[governor of Georgia]] by a large majority.

===Speaker of the House===
{{Main|31st United States Congress|Zachary Taylor#Presidency (1849–1850)|Presidency of Millard Fillmore}}

After 63 ballots,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Jenkins|first1=Jeffery A.|last2=Stewart|first2=Charles Haines|title=Fighting for the speakership the House and the rise of party government|date=2012|publisher=Princeton University Press|location=Princeton, N.J.|isbn=9781400845460|page=167}}</ref> he became Speaker of the House on December 22, 1849, at the age of 34.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hamilton|first1=Holman|title=Prologue to Conflict : The Crisis and Compromise of 1850|date=2015|publisher=University Press of Kentucky|location=Lexington|isbn=978-0813191362|page=42}}</ref> In 1850—following the July 9 death of [[Zachary Taylor]] and the accession of [[Millard Fillmore]] to the [[President of the United States|presidency]]—Cobb, as Speaker, would have been [[United States presidential line of succession|next in line to the presidency]] for two days due to the resultant [[Vice President of the United States#Vacancies|vice presidential vacancy]] and a [[president pro tempore]] of the Senate vacancy, except he did not meet the minimum eligibility for the presidency of being 35 years old. The Senate elected [[William R. King]] as president pro tempore on July 11.

===Governor of Georgia===
In 1851, Cobb left the House to serve as the [[Governor of Georgia]], holding that post until 1853.  He published ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=pXYTAQAAMAAJ A Scriptural Examination of the Institution of Slavery in the United States: With its Objects and Purposes]'' in 1856.<!--exists both at google books and archive.org, not sure which is preferred--><ref>[[New International Encyclopedia|NIE]]</ref>

===Return to Congress and Secretary of the Treasury===
{{Further|34th United States Congress|Presidency of Franklin Pierce|Presidency of James Buchanan}}
[[File:COBB, Howell-Treasury (BEP engraved portrait).jpg|thumb|left|175px|[[Bureau of Engraving and Printing]] portrait of Cobb as Secretary of the Treasury]]

He was elected to the [[34th United States Congress|34th Congress]] before being appointed as [[Secretary of the Treasury]] in [[James Buchanan|Buchanan]]'s Cabinet. He served for three years, resigning in December 1860.  At one time, Cobb was Buchanan's choice for his successor.<ref>[[#Klein|Klein (1962)]], pp. 11.</ref>

[[File:Buchanan Cabinet.jpg|thumb|right|President [[James Buchanan]] and Cabinet, 1859. Photograph by [[Mathew Brady]]]]

===A Founder of the Confederacy===
In 1860, Cobb ceased to be a [[Southern Unionist|Unionist]], and became a leader of the [[secession]] movement,{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} not surprising since he once owned 1000 slaves.<ref name="Larson">{{cite web |last1=Larson |first1=Erik |title=A President Called 'Aunt Fancy' |url=https://www.delanceyplace.com/view-archives.php?p=5095 |website=Delanceyplace.com |access-date=26 July 2024}}</ref> He was president of a convention of the seceded states that assembled in [[Montgomery, Alabama]], on February 4, 1861. Under Cobb's guidance, the delegates drafted a constitution for the new Confederacy. He served as president of several sessions of the [[Confederate Provisional Congress]], and swore in [[Jefferson Davis]] as president of the Confederacy before resigning to join the military when war erupted.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Davis|first1=Ruby Sellers|title=Howell Cobb, President of the Provisional Congress of the Confederacy|journal=The Georgia Historical Quarterly|date=1962|volume=46|issue=1|pages=20–33|jstor=40578354}}</ref>

===American Civil War===
{{Main|American Civil War|Georgia in the American Civil War}}

[[File:General Howell Cobb, C.S.A. (9241073518).jpg|thumb|left|General Howell Cobb]]

Cobb joined the [[Confederate States Army|Confederate army]] and was commissioned as [[Colonel (United States)|colonel]] of the 16th Georgia Infantry. He was appointed a [[Brigadier general (United States)|brigadier general]] on February 13, 1862, and assigned command of a [[brigade]] in what became the [[Army of Northern Virginia]]. Between February and June 1862, he represented the Confederate authorities in negotiations with Union officers for an agreement on the exchange of [[prisoner of war|prisoners of war]]. His efforts in these discussions contributed to the [[Dix-Hill Cartel]] accord reached in July 1862.<ref>''Official Records,'' Series II, Vol. 3, pp. 338–340, 812–813, Vol. 4, pp. 31–32, 48.</ref>

Cobb saw combat during the [[Peninsula Campaign]] and the [[Seven Days Battles]]. Cobb's brigade played a key role in the fighting during the [[Battle of South Mountain]], especially at [[Crampton's Gap]], where it arrived at a critical time to delay a Union advance through the gap, but at a bloody cost. His men also fought at the subsequent [[Battle of Antietam]].

In October 1862, Cobb was detached from the [[Army of Northern Virginia]] and sent to the District of Middle Florida. He was promoted to [[Major general (United States)|major general]] on September 9, 1863, and placed in command of the District of Georgia and Florida. He suggested the construction of a [[prisoner-of-war camp]] in southern Georgia, a location thought to be safe from Union incursions. This idea led to the creation of the infamous [[Andersonville prison]].

When [[William T. Sherman]]'s armies entered Georgia during the 1864 [[Atlanta Campaign]] and subsequent [[Sherman's March to the Sea|March to the Sea]], Cobb commanded the Georgia Reserve Corps as a general. In the spring of 1865, with the Confederacy clearly waning, he and his troops were sent to [[Columbus, Georgia]] to help oppose [[Wilson's Raid]]. He led the hopeless [[Confederate States Army|Confederate]] resistance in the [[Battle of Columbus, Georgia]] on Easter Sunday, April 16, 1865.

During Sherman's March to the Sea, the army camped one night near Cobb's plantation.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Seibert|first1=David|title=Howell Cobb Plantation|url=http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/topics/historical_markers/county/baldwin/howell-cobb-plantation|website=GeorgiaInfo: an Online Georgia Almanac|publisher=Digital Library of Georgia|access-date=November 4, 2016}}</ref> When Sherman discovered that the house he planned to stay in for the night belonged to Cobb, whom Sherman described in his ''Memoirs'' as "one of the leading rebels of the South, then a general in the Southern army," he dined in Cobb's slave quarters,<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GGbkHUePtVwC&q=%22Let+Christians+use+all+their+influence+to+have+justice+done+to+the%22&pg=PA211|title=The Soul of Battle: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny|date=1999|publisher=The Free Press|location=New York City|first=Victor Davis|last=Hanson|page=211|isbn=9780684845029|author-link=Victor Davis Hanson|access-date=March 8, 2016}}</ref> confiscated Cobb's property and burned the plantation,<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Mitchell|first1=Robert B.|date=November 2014|title=Terrible beyond endurance|url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=fth&AN=97505154&site=eds-live&scope=site|journal=America's Civil War|volume=27|issue=5|page=37|access-date=June 14, 2016}}</ref> instructing his subordinates to "spare nothing."<ref>{{cite web | title = Memoirs, ch.21 | publisher = William Tecumseh Sherman | url = http://www.sonofthesouth.net/union-generals/sherman/memoirs/general-sherman-march-sea.htm | access-date = May 20, 2010 }}</ref>

In the closing days of the war, Cobb fruitlessly opposed General [[Robert E. Lee]]'s eleventh hour proposal to enlist slaves into the Confederate Army. Fearing that such a move would completely discredit the Confederacy's fundamental justification of slavery, that black people were inferior, he said, "You cannot make soldiers of slaves, or slaves of soldiers. The day you make a soldier of them is the beginning of the end of the Revolution. And if slaves seem good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong."<ref>''Encyclopædia Britannica''</ref>

Cobb surrendered to the U.S. at [[Macon, Georgia]] on April 20, 1865.