Battles & Leaders of the Civil War: General Jacob D. Cox at Antietam

Jacob Dolson Cox, (Jr.) (October 27, 1828 August 4, 1900) was a Union Army general during the American Civil War, and later a Republican politician from Ohio. At the beginning of the Maryland Campaign, Cox's brigade became the Kanawha Division of the IX Corps of the Army of the Potomac. When corps commander Maj. Gen. Jesse L. Reno was killed at the Battle of 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 expertise. Burnside refused the suggestion, but at the Battle of Antietam, kept Cox under his supervision. The poor showing of the corps around "Burnside Bridge" at Antietam is generally attributed to Burnside, not Cox. Coxs account of the Battle of Antietam, part of the well known Battles & Leaders of the Civil War Series, discusses the strategy and tactics of the battle, as well as the controversy over whether McClellan should have chased the retreating Army of Northern Virginia after the battle.

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