COBB, Howell, Congress, GA (1815-1868)

COBB, Howell, (nephew of Howell Cobb [1772-1818]), a Representative from Georgia; born at “Cherry Hill,” Jefferson County, Ga., September 7, 1815; moved with his father to Athens, Ga., in childhood; was graduated from Franklin College (then a part of the University of Georgia), at Athens in 1834; studied law; was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Athens, Ga., in 1836; solicitor general of the western judicial circuit of Georgia 1837-1841; elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-eighth and to the three succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1843-March 3, 1851); chairman, Committee on Mileage (Twenty-eighth Congress); Speaker of the House of Representatives (Thirty-first Congress); Governor of Georgia 1851-1853; elected to the Thirty-fourth Congress (March 4, 1855-March 3, 1857); Secretary of the Treasury in the Cabinet of President Buchanan and served from March 6, 1857, to December 10, 1860, when he resigned; chairman of the convention of delegates from the seceded States which assembled in Montgomery, Ala., on February 24, 1861, to form a Confederate Government; appointed a brigadier general in the Confederate Army February 13, 1862, and promoted to major general September 9, 1863; surrendered at Macon, Ga., April 20, 1864; died in New York City October 9, 1868; interment in Oconee Cemetery, Athens, Clarke County, Ga.

Bibliography Simpson, John E. Howell Cobb: The Politics of Ambition . Chicago: Adams Press, 1973; Simpson, John E. “Prelude to Compromise: Howell Cobb and the House Speakership Battle of 1849.” Georgia Historical Quarterly 58 (Winter 1974): 389-99.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present