Civil War
At the start of the Civil War, McCook was appointed colonel of the 1st Ohio Infantry in April 1861. He served in the Washington defenses and saw action at the First Battle of Bull Run. On September 3, 1861, he was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers and commanded a division in Tennessee. He earned the brevet of lieutenant colonel in the regular army for his part in the capture of Nashville, Tennessee. McCook then commanded the 2nd Division in the Army of the Ohio at the Battle of Shiloh on the second day of fighting, and then in the subsequent campaign against Corinth. He was promoted to major general of volunteers on July 17, 1862.
McCook was given command of the I Corps in the Army of the Ohio. His corps suffered heavy casualties and driven back a mile at the Battle of Perryville in October 1862. Command of the Army of the Ohio was reorganized and his command designated the Right Wing of the XIV Corps in the new Army of the Cumberland. His command again suffered heavy losses at the Battle of Stones River. Once again the command structure was reorganized and his corps named the XX Corps. For the third and final time, at Chickamauga, McCook's troops suffered heavily and were driven from the field. He was courtmartialed and partially blamed for the Union disaster at Chickamauga. He was not convicted but relieved of duty in the Army of the Cumberland.
He waited almost a year before receiving another command assignment of any kind. It came thanks in part to Confederate General Jubal Early and his threat against Washington, D.C. McCook was placed in command of the "Defenses of the Potomac River and Washington" and was in charge of all forces defending the capital at the Battle of Fort Stevens. The day the battle ended, so did McCook's command of the city's defenses and he was again without command. At the close of the war he was given command of the District of Eastern Arkansas. He received brevet promotions to brigadier general and major general in the regular army for service throughout the war.
Read more about this topic: Alexander McDowell McCook
Famous quotes by civil war:
“Since the Civil War its six states have produced fewer political ideas, as political ideas run in the Republic, than any average county in Kansas or Nebraska.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. It is a pacific substitute for civil war in which the opposing armies are counted and the victory is awarded to the larger before any blood is shed. Except in the sacred tests of democracy and in the incantations of the orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“We have heard all of our lives how, after the Civil War was over, the South went back to straighten itself out and make a living again. It was for many years a voiceless part of the government. The balance of power moved away from it—to the north and the east. The problems of the north and the east became the big problem of the country and nobody paid much attention to the economic unbalance the South had left as its only choice.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“He was high and mighty. But the kindest creature to his slaves—and the unfortunate results of his bad ways were not sold, had not to jump over ice blocks. They were kept in full view and provided for handsomely in his will. His wife and daughters in the might of their purity and innocence are supposed never to dream of what is as plain before their eyes as the sunlight, and they play their parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter.”
—Anonymous Antebellum Confederate Women. Previously quoted by Mary Boykin Chesnut in Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, edited by C. Vann Woodward (1981)