July 14th, 2011
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 7/14/2011
COBB, Howell (1815-1868) was an American political figure. A Southern Democrat, Cobb was a five-term member of the United States House of Representatives and Speaker of the House from 1849 to 1851. He also served as a Secretary of Treasury under President James Buchanan (1857–1860) and the 40th Governor of Georgia (1851–1853). He is, however, probably best known as one of the founders of the Confederate States of America, having served as the Speaker of the Provisional Confederate Congress, when delegates of the secessionist states issued creation of the Confederacy. Cobb served for two weeks between the foundation of the Confederacy and the election of Jefferson Davis as first President. This made him, as the Speaker of the Congress, provisional Head of State at this time. In 1863 he made Major General in the Confederate Army. During Sherman’s March to the Sea, he leveled Cobb’s plantation and in the closing days of the war, Cobb fruitlessly opposed General Robert E. Lee’s proposal to enlist slaves into the service, stating that it would completely discredit the fundamental justification of slavery that blacks were inferior people, 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." War-date Confederate Document Signed twice “Howell Cobb Maj Gen.” Atlanta, Georgia, October 1863, being a requisition for forage for “Public and Private Horses, Mules and Oxen, in the service of Maj. Genl. Howell Cobb”. Fine condition.
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