Table of Contents

* List of Illustrations * Preface * Introduction * 1: Citizen of the Western Reserve Maturing in Peace, Girding for War * 2: A Citizen-General Secures (West)Virginia * 3: Citizen-General on the National Stage The Maryland Campaign * 4: Citizen/Political General PoliticalWars outside the Mainstream * 5: Division and Army Commander The Atlanta Campaign * 6: Citizen-Warrior The Franklin-Nashville Campaign and War's End * 7: From Citizen-General to State and National Political Leader * 8: Citizen-Statesman * 9: Civil War Historian * 10: Renaissance Man in the Gilded Age * Notes * Selected Bibliography * Index

Promotional Information

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.

About the Author

Eugene D. Schmiel is a retired U.S. Department of State Foreign Service officer. He was an assistant professor of history at St. Francis University (PA) and has taught at Marymount, Shenandoah, and Penn State universities. He holds the Ph.D. degree from The Ohio State University and coauthored, with his wife Kathryn, a book on life in the Foreign Service.

Reviews

“This is a comprehensive biography of … a very important figure, not only in Civil War military history but also in political and religious matters. This book makes a significant contribution by relating in a thoughtful, analytical way the life and career of one of the most important Ohioans of that era. The author has clearly done his homework, and the text is not only well researched but very polished.”

“In Citizen-General: Jacob Dolson Cox and the Civil War Era, Eugene D. Schmiel seeks to provide a better understanding of the Civil War era and the memory of it through a consideration of the heretofore neglected Jacob Dolson Cox.…By shining a light on the varied careers of Jacob Dolson Cox, Eugene D. Schmiel has opened the dialog on this significant figure of the Civil War era and commenced the process of historical revision that Cox described.”
*U.S. Military History Review*

“Citizen-General is an important biographical treatment of a man whose rather modest place in the popular imagination belies an enviable record of notable influences on 19th century America.”

“Jacob Cox was not just a significant figure in the Civil War and the writing of its history, but an important player in postwar politics as well. In Citizen-General, Eugene D. Schmiel provides an account of Cox's life and career, and the forces that shaped them, that is informative, impressively researched, and consistently interesting. This is a book that will appeal to anyone with an interest in the Civil War and its aftermath.”

“Jacob Dolson Cox played a major role in a number of different campaigns of the Civil War, including command of the 9th Corps at the Battle of Antietam. His military service—and his career as a politician—have long cried out for a full-length biographical treatment. Dr. Eugene Schmiel has rectified that oversight with his new biography of Cox. This
well-researched, fair, and balanced treatment of Cox's life deserves a place on the bookshelf of anyone interested in the role played by political generals in the Civil War.”

“Lawyer, soldier, governor, businessman, historian, scientist, law school dean, university president, statesman, Jacob D. Cox helped win the war for the Union and shaped the nation in the decades after. I was particularly delighted with Gene Schmiel's account of Cox the Historian. He does a superb job in unraveling the tangled literary debates and personal quarrels of the veterans who fought the war. Gene Schmiel is to be applauded for this perceptive and authoritative account of an extraordinary American.”

“Jacob Cox may be the most intriguing character from the Civil War era that most Americans have never heard of. In Citizen-General, Eugene D. Schmiel captures his achievements and his contradictions, allowing us to see Cox as a key figure in a convulsive moment of American history.”