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Gil R. -> RE: CSA Brig Gen George Blake Cosby (10/11/2007 1:00:52 PM)
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Cosby's all done now. Let me know if the ratings seem off.
Brig. Gen. George Blake Cosby (b. 1830, d. 1909). Cosby was born in Louisville, Kentucky on January 19, 1830. In 1852, he graduated from West Point. Cosby was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in a Mounted Rifle Regiment. For the next several years, he fought against Comanches on the Texas frontier, and by 1861 had risen to captain in the 2nd Cavalry. At the outbreak of the war, Cosby resigned from the U.S. Army to join the Confederacy. Commissioned as a major, he initially served on Brig. Gen. Simon B. Buckner’s staff in the Army of Central Kentucky. On February 15, 1862, as the garrison in Fort Donelson realized the hopelessness of their situation, Cosby carried the message of surrender from Buckner to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. Grant sent him back to his old friend Buckner with the famous message demanding unconditional surrender – earning himself the nickname “Unconditional Surrender Grant” on this occasion. Like the rest of the more than 12,000 men who surrendered, Cosby became a prisoner of war but was later part of a prisoner exchange. On January 20, 1863, he was made a brigadier general and given command of cavalry in Gen. Earl Van Dorn’s corps in the Army of the Mississippi. At the Battle of Thompson’s Station on March 5, Van Dorn, Cosby and Gen. Nathan B. Forrest defeated and captured a Union Brigade under the command of Col. John Coburn. Cosby was then transferred to Department of the West under Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. He saw little action during the Vicksburg Campaign due to Johnston’s slow response and failed attempt in saving Vicksburg, the Confederacy’s vital stronghold on the Mississippi River. After the Vicksburg garrison’s surrender, Cosby was transferred to eastern Tennessee and western Virginia, where he would command cavalry under Gen. John H. Morgan, who had just gained great fame with a long raid into Ohio and Indiana that was intended to draw forces away from Vicksburg and the Gettysburg Campaign in the eastern theater. A year later, when Gen. John C. Breckinridge was given command of the Department of Southwest Virginia, Cosby served under him, fighting at the Battle of Marion in December 1864 during the Union campaign to destroy the vital Confederate salt works at Saltville, Virginia. Cosby would next be under the command of Gen. John Echols until the end of the war. Cosby later moved to California and became a farmer, also serving as a public servant in the state, as both adjutant general and state secretary of the board of engineers. Cosby died in Oakland, California on June 29, 1909, taking his life because of poor health linked to his long suffering from war injuries. He is buried in Sacramento City Cemetery in California. (Bio by Andrew Thayer)
Leadership: 3
Tactics: 4
Initiative: 3
Command: 4
Cavalry: 5
Start date: 49
Teaches: Independent
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