Thomas R. R. Cobb

{{Short description|American politician (1823–1862)}} {{Use American English|date=March 2017}} {{Use mdy dates|date=March 2017}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Thomas R. R. Cobb | image = T. R. R. Cobb.jpg | caption = T. R. R. Cobb by Horace James Bradley | office = [[Deputy (legislator)|Deputy]] from [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]]<br />to the [[Provisional Congress of the Confederate States|Provisional Congress<br />of the Confederate States]] | term_start = February 8, 1861 | term_end = February 17, 1862 | predecessor = New creation | successor = Position abolished | birth_name = Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb | birth_date = {{Birth date|1823|4|10}} | birth_place = [[Jefferson County, Georgia]] | death_date = {{Death date and age|1862|12|13|1823|4|10}} | death_place = [[Fredericksburg, Virginia]] | relations = {{hlist|[[Howell Cobb]] (brother)|[[Sarah Johnson Cocke]]}} | alma_mater = [[Franklin College of Arts and Sciences|Franklin College]] | allegiance = {{flag|Confederate States|1861}} | branch = {{army|CSA|size=23px}} | service_years = 1861–1862 | rank = [[File:Confederate States of America General-collar.svg|35px]] [[Brigadier general|Brigadier General]] | commands = [[Cobb's Legion]]<br />Cobb's Brigade | battles = '''[[American Civil War]]''' * [[Seven Days Battles]] * [[Battle of Malvern Hill]] * [[Battle of Fredericksburg]]{{KIA}} | spouse = Marion Lumpkin | children = 3 (surviving) }}

'''Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb''' (April 10, 1823 – December 13, 1862), also known as '''T. R. R. Cobb''', was an American lawyer, author, politician, and [[Confederate States Army]] officer, killed in the [[Battle of Fredericksburg]] during the [[American Civil War]]. He was the brother of noted Confederate statesman [[Howell Cobb]].

==Early life, education and marriage== Cobb was born in 1823 in [[Jefferson County, Georgia|Jefferson County]], [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], to John A. Cobb and Sarah (Rootes) Cobb. He was the younger brother of [[Howell Cobb]]. Cobb graduated in 1841 from [[Franklin College of Arts and Sciences|Franklin College]]<ref name=Eicher>Eicher, John H., and [[David J. Eicher|Eicher, David J.]], ''Civil War High Commands'', Stanford University Press, 2001; {{ISBN|978-0-8047-3641-1}}, p. 592.</ref> (present-day [[University of Georgia]]), where he was a member of the [[Phi Kappa Literary Society]]. He was admitted to the bar in 1842.

He married Marion Lumpkin, daughter of the [[Supreme Court of Georgia (U.S. state)|Supreme Court of Georgia]] Chief Justice [[Joseph Henry Lumpkin]]. Only three of their children lived past childhood: Callender (Callie), who married Augustus Longstreet Hull; Sarah A. (Sally), who married Henry Jackson, the son of [[Henry R. Jackson|Henry Rootes Jackson]]; and Marion (Birdie), who married [[M. Hoke Smith|Michael Hoke Smith]]. The [[Lucy Cobb Institute]], which he founded, was named for a daughter who died shortly before the school opened. His niece [[Mildred Lewis Rutherford]] served the school for over forty years in various capacities.<ref name="thomas">{{cite book|last1=Thomas|first1=Frances Taliaferro|last2=Koch|first2=Mary Levin|title=A Portrait of Historic Athens & Clarke County|edition=Second|orig-year=1992|year=2009|publisher=[[University of Georgia Press]]|location=[[Athens, Georgia]]|isbn=978-0-8203-3044-0|page=130}}</ref>

==Political career== From 1849 to 1857, he was a reporter of the [[Supreme Court of Georgia (U.S. state)|Supreme Court of Georgia]]. He was an ardent [[secession]]ist, and was a delegate to the Secession Convention. He is best known for his treatise on the law of slavery titled ''An Inquiry into the Law of Negro Slavery in the United States of America'' (1858), published seventy-five years after the [[Quock Walker]] case attempting to refute the proposition that slavery is antithetical to natural law:<ref>{{cite book |last=Cover |first=Robert M. |title=Justice Accused: Antislavery and the Judicial Process |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |year=1975|page=8}}</ref>

<blockquote>[T]his inquiry into the physical, mental, and moral development of the negro race seems to point them clearly, as peculiarly fitted for a laborious class. The physical frame is capable of great and long-continued exertion. Their mental capacity renders them incapable of successful self-development, and yet adapts them for the direction of the wiser race. Their moral character renders them happy, peaceful, contented and cheerful in a status that would break the spirit and destroy the energies of the Caucasian or the native American.<ref name=Morris>Morris, Thomas D., ''Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619–1860'', University of North Carolina Press, 1996, {{ISBN|978-0-8078-4817-3}}, p. 18.</ref></blockquote>

Cobb's Inquiry represented the capstone of proslavery legal thought and has been called one of the most comprehensive American proslavery treatise.<ref>Alfred L. Brophy, ''University, Court, and Slave: Pro-Slavery Thought in Southern Colleges and Courts and the Coming of Civil War'' (2016): 227-53.</ref> It drew together examples from world history of slavery, which he used to argue that slavery was close to ubiquitous in human history and thus natural. He also drew on evidence of slavery's economic necessity and on then popular ideas of "science," which supported [[white supremacy]] and slavery.<ref>Alfred L. Brophy, Antislavery Women and the Origins of American Jurisprudence, ''Texas Law Review'' 94 (2015): 115, 123-25.</ref>

Cobb was also one of the founders of the [[University of Georgia School of Law]], and served on the first Georgia code commission of 1858 and drafted what became the private, penal, and civil law portions of the Georgia Code of 1861, which was the first successfully enacted attempt at a comprehensive codification of the common law anywhere in the United States.<ref>{{cite journal |first=William B |last=McCash |title=Thomas Cobb and the Codification of Georgia Law |journal=The Georgia Historical Quarterly| volume=62|issue=1 |pages=9–23 |jstor=40580436 |year=1978 }}</ref> It is the ancestor of today's [[Official Code of Georgia Annotated]]. Simultaneously, the Northern law reformer [[David Dudley Field II]] was independently working in the same ambitious direction of trying to codify ''all'' of the common law into a coherent [[civil code]], but Field's proposed civil code was not actually enacted until 1866 in Dakota Territory, was belatedly enacted in 1872 in California, and was repeatedly rejected several times by his home state of New York and never enacted in that state.<ref name="HermanShael">{{cite journal |last1=Herman |first1=Shael |title=The Fate and the Future of Codification in America |journal=The American Journal of Legal History |date=October 1996 |volume=40 |issue=4 |pages=407–437 |url=https://academic.oup.com/ajlh/article-abstract/40/4/407/1801432|doi=10.2307/845410 |jstor=845410 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> Unlike Field's largely race-neutral code,<ref name="Funk">{{cite journal |last1=Funk |first1=Kellen |last2=Mullen |first2=Lincoln A. |title=The Spine of American Law: Digital Text Analysis and U.S. Legal Practice |journal=[[The American Historical Review]] |date=February 2018 |volume=123 |issue=1 |pages=132–164 |doi=10.1093/ahr/123.1.132 |url=https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID4504942_code2390278.pdf?abstractid=3001377&mirid=1}} (At p. 154.)</ref> the original Georgia Code was strongly biased in favor of slavery and white supremacy, and even contained a presumption that blacks were ''prima facie'' slaves until proven otherwise.<ref>Andrew P. Morriss, [https://books.google.com/books?id=vxjOEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA314 "Georgia Code (1861),"] in ''Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, And Historical Encyclopedia'', vol. 1, ed. Junius P. Rodriguez (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2007), 314-315.</ref> Georgia ultimately kept the Code after the Civil War but revised it in 1867 and many more times since, to purge the racism and pro-slavery bias inherent in the original text. A long-standing item in the code was the "[[citizens' arrest]] law",<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/magazine/how-to-make-a-citizens-arrest.html|title=How to Make a Citizen's Arrest|last=Wollan|first=Malia|date=6 May 2016|work=The New York Times|access-date=26 April 2018|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> which was added to the code in 1863 and remained unchanged until 2021 when the Georgia General Assembly curtailed the law<ref>[https://www.npr.org/2021/05/11/995835333/in-ahmaud-arberys-name-georgia-repeals-citizens-arrest-law In Ahmaud Arbery's Name, Georgia Repeals Citizen's Arrest Law], npr.org. Accessed March 4, 2024.</ref>

Cobb served in the [[Congress of the Confederate States|Confederate Congress]], where for a time he was [[Chairperson|chairman]] of the Committee on Military Affairs. He was also on the committee that was responsible for the drafting of the Confederate constitution.

==American Civil War== Cobb organized [[Cobb's Legion]] in the late summer of 1861 and was commissioned a colonel in the [[Confederate States Army|Confederate army]] on August 28, 1861. The Legion was assigned to the [[Army of Northern Virginia]]. It took heavy losses during the [[Maryland Campaign]]. He was promoted to [[Brigadier General#United States|brigadier general]] on November 1, 1862, but this promotion was not confirmed by the [[Congress of the Confederate States|Confederate Congress]].<ref name=Eicher/>

==Death and legacy== [[File:BG. Cobb Marking.jpg|thumb|227x227px|A marker on the side of the Sunken Road showing where Cobb was mortally wounded]] At the [[Battle of Fredericksburg]], he was mortally wounded in the thigh by a [[Union Army|Union]] artillery shell that burst inside the Stephens house near the Sunken Road on Marye's Heights. He bled to death from damage to his [[femoral artery]] on December 13, 1862.<ref>O'Reilly, p. 296; Eicher, p. 592.</ref> Some later accounts by veterans claim that the wounding was by rifle fire and that a Confederate soldier may have been responsible.<ref>[http://colquitt.k12.ga.us/gspurloc/cobbslegion/cobb_articles/death_cobb.htm Controversies about the death of T. R. R. Cobb] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060822164054/http://colquitt.k12.ga.us/gspurloc/cobbslegion/cobb_articles/death_cobb.htm |date=August 22, 2006 }}</ref> He is buried at [[Oconee Hill Cemetery]] in [[Athens, Georgia]].

The [[T. R. R. Cobb House]], where Thomas Cobb and his wife Marion lived in Athens is now a museum. Originally constructed across Prince Avenue from its current location, it was moved to Stone Mountain Park in Stone Mountain, Georgia, where it was partially reassembled about 1990. Stone Mountain Park had hoped to restore the house, but the project fell through. Then, it was transported back to Athens where it was reassembled and underwent an extensive restoration. The house is now an operational museum owned by the Watson-Brown Foundation.

==Works== * ''Digest of the Statute Laws of Georgia'' (1851)[https://books.google.com/books?id=Tx9FAAAAYAAJ&q=Digest+of+the+Statute+Laws+of+Georgia+%281851%29] * ''Inquiry into the Law of Negro Slavery in the United States'' (1858)[https://archive.org/details/aninquiryintola00cobbgoog ] * ''Historical Sketch of Slavery, from the Earliest Periods'' (1859)[https://archive.org/details/anhistoricalske00cobbgoog ] * ''The Code of the State of Georgia'' (1861) AKA ''The Code of 1863'' because though published in 1861, the [[Georgia General Assembly]] did not pass it till 1863.[https://books.google.com/books?id=2ysbAAAAYAAJ&dq=The+Code+of+the+State+of+Georgia+%281861&pg=PA1100] * ''The Code of the State of Georgia'' (1873) * ''The Colonel'' (1897)

==See also== *[[List of American Civil War generals (Acting Confederate)]] *[[List of American Civil War generals (Confederate)]] *[[List of signers of the Georgia Ordinance of Secession]]

==Notes== {{Reflist|30em}}

==References== * Eicher, John H., and [[David J. Eicher|Eicher, David J.]], ''Civil War High Commands'', Stanford University Press, 2001; {{ISBN|978-0-8047-3641-1}} * McCash, William B. 1983. ''Thomas R.R. Cobb: The Making of a Southern Nationalist''. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. * O'Reilly, Francis Augustín, ''The Fredericksburg Campaign: Winter War on the Rappahannock'', Louisiana State University Press, 2003; {{ISBN|0-8071-3154-7}} * Sifakis, Stewart. ''Who Was Who in the Civil War.'' New York: Facts On File, 1988; {{ISBN|978-0-8160-1055-4}} * [[Ezra J. Warner (historian)|Warner, Ezra J.]] ''Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders.'' Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959; {{ISBN|978-0-8071-0823-9}}

==External links==  * [https://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2010/11/marion-lumpkin-cobb.html Marion Lumpkin Cobb profile], womenhistoryblog.com. Accessed March 4, 2024. * [http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2487 Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb] at the ''[[New Georgia Encyclopedia]]''

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cobb, Thomas R. R.}} [[Category:1823 births]] [[Category:1862 deaths]] [[Category:American legal writers]] [[Category:Deputies and delegates to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States]] [[Category:Confederate States Army brigadier generals]] [[Category:People from Jefferson County, Georgia]] [[Category:People of Georgia (U.S. state) in the American Civil War]] [[Category:Signatories of the Constitution of the Confederate States]] [[Category:Signatories of the Provisional Constitution of the Confederate States]] [[Category:Signatories of the Georgia Ordinance of Secession]] [[Category:Franklin College of Arts and Sciences alumni]] [[Category:Politicians killed in the American Civil War]] [[Category:Proponents of scientific racism]] [[Category:Burials at Oconee Hill Cemetery]] [[Category:Confederate States of America military personnel killed in the American Civil War]]