Citizen-General: Jacob Dolson Cox and the Civil War Era by Eugene D. Schmiel (review)

This is a long overdue biography of an important Civil War commander. Eugene D. Schmiel, a retired foreign service officer, argues that Jacob Dolson Cox’s career exemplified the ideal of the citizen-general. Cox (1828–1900) rose from an Ohio politician and lawyer-turned-general in western Virginia to a competent corps- and army-level commander at Antietam, Atlanta, and Nashville. After the war, he served in state and federal politics, and became a prominent Civil War historian. While this book sat on the shelf for too long before publication to engage with the recent vibrant literature on this subject, it is nonetheless a sound biography of a significant figure.

The biography focuses on Cox’s experiences with the stresses of his times. Schmiel begins with his early life, specifically his puritanical upbringing in northeastern Ohio from which he became a “detached intellectual” (11). Cox also adopted antislavery ideology but, Schmiel carefully admits, not immediate abolitionism, at Oberlin College. Once married, Cox began a law career that quickly led him into state politics. A protégé of Salmon P. Chase, he became a Republican as soon as the party began in Ohio. The radical gained sufficient influence that Governor Denison made him head of state militia in 1860. When war began the next year, the young politician found himself commanding thousands of soldiers securing northwestern Virginia for the Union. Schmiel’s attention to detail pays off here as he takes Cox through his baptism of fire. Though he made mistakes, he adapted well to military life—better than many others, professionals and amateurs alike.

Schmiel demonstrates this best with his coverage of Cox as a senior commander. First, he calls his performance at Antietam, where he led an entire wing of the Army of the Potomac, “the most effective citizen-general among the Union forces” (97). Despite this success, Cox spent a frustrating year in the political wilderness. He spends an entire chapter on how the lack of allies kept him without a command, ably demonstrating how political connections worked against him instead of the reverse. Skill, he argues, restored him in the western theater. In the Atlanta Campaign and finally at Franklin and Nashville, Cox proved himself to be an able commander. By the war’s end, Schmiel places his subject as the legendary Roman commander Cincinnatus, the citizen who selflessly assumed public service for the defense of the Republic.

The last three chapters of the book deal with Cox’s lengthy and varied postwar career. First, he failed in Ohio. Although his war record and aid from Republican leaders propelled him into the governorship in 1865, Schmiel argues that Cox’s independent streak ruined him within a decade. His weak stance on race and support for President Johnson’s Reconstruction plan ostracized him from his party. Second, the same spirit of independence further hurt him as Grant’s secretary of the interior. Third, his coverage of Cox’s extensive writings on the Civil War constitutes one of the best parts of the book. He wrote reviews, books, and a memoir, the highly regarded Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, until his death. These efforts, aided by the Official Records, gave Cox a chance to speak for the non–West Point generals who saved the country and against Lost Cause–oriented southern works.

The book’s main flaw is its age. Originally written in 1968, it says little about the new literature on the Civil War, especially memory. His text mentions “recent historians,” but his endnotes merely list them. This detracts from its overall importance. Citizen-General will rightfully become the standard work on Cox for years to come, but it could have been much more.