Jacob Dolson Cox Jacob Dolson Cox , ( Jr . ) ( October 27 , 1828August 4 , 1900 ) was a lawyer , a Union Army general during the American Civil War , and later a Republican politician from Ohio . He served as the 28th Governor of Ohio and as United States Secretary of the Interior . Early years . Cox was born in Montreal , Canada , to American parents , Jacob Dolson Cox and Thedia Redelia Kenyon Cox . The elder Cox was a well - known contractor in New York City , living temporarily in Montreal while he superintended the roof construction of the Church of Notre Dame . He returned with his parents to New York City a year later . His early education included private readings with a Columbia College student . His practical education began at the age of 14 as he worked in a law office as a clerk , and at 16 learned bookkeeping at a brokerage firm . Although as a youth he considered a career at sea , his parents joined the Congregational Church and he decided to study for the ministry . He was influenced by the Reverends Samuel D . Cochran and Charles Grandison Finney , leaders of Oberlin College , which he attended and with which he maintained a lifelong association , including service as a trustee from 1876 to 1900 . At Oberlin , Cox married the eldest daughter of college president Finney in 1849 ; at age 19 , Helen Clarissa Finney was already a widow with a small son . The couple lived with the president , but Cox and his father - in - law became estranged due to theological disputes . He graduated from Oberlin with a degree in theology in 1850 or 1851 . He became superintendent of the Warren , Ohio , school system as he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1853 . As a strong abolitionist , in 1855 he helped to organize the Republican Party in Ohio and stumped for its candidates in counties surrounding Warren . He entered the Ohio State Senate in 1860 and formed a political alliance with Senator and future President James A . Garfield , and with Governor Salmon P . Chase . While in the legislature , he accepted a commission with the Ohio Militia as a brigadier general and spent much of the winter of 1860 – 61 studying military science . Civil War . At the start of the war , Cox was in poor health and was the father of six children ( of the eight he and Helen eventually had ) , but he chose to enter Federal service as an Ohio volunteer . His first assignment was to command a recruiting camp near Columbus , and then the Kanawha Brigade of the Department of the Ohio . His brigade joined the Department of Western Virginia and fought successfully in the early Kanawha Valley campaign under major general George B . McClellan . In 1862 the brigade moved to Washington , D . C . , and was attached to John Pope ' s Army of Virginia , but did not see action at the Second Battle of Bull Run with the rest of the army . At the beginning of the Maryland Campaign , Cox ' s brigade became the Kanawha Division of the IX Corps of the Army of the Potomac . When corps commander Maj . Gen . Jesse L . Reno was killed at the Battle of South Mountain , Cox assumed command of the IX Corps . He suggested to Maj . Gen . Ambrose Burnside , formally the commander of IX Corps , but who was commanding a two - corps " wing " of the Army , that he be allowed to return to division command , which was more in keeping with his level of military expertise . Burnside refused the suggestion , but at the Battle of Antietam , kept Cox under his supervision . The poor showing of the corps around " Burnside Bridge " at Antietam is generally attributed to Burnside , not Cox . After Antietam , Cox was appointed major general to rank from October 6 , 1862 , but this appointment expired the following March when the United States Senate felt that there were too many generals of this rank already serving . He was later renominated and confirmed on December 7 , 1864 . Most of 1863 was quiet for Cox , who was assigned to command the District of Ohio , and later the District of Michigan , in the Department of the Ohio . During the Atlanta , Franklin - Nashville , and Carolinas campaigns of 1864 – 65 , Cox commanded the 3rd Division of the XXIII Corps of the Army of the Ohio , under Maj . Gen . John M . Schofield . He is widely credited with saving the center of the Union battle line at the Battle of Franklin in November 1864 . Cox led the 3rd Division at the battle of Wilmington in North Carolina then took command of the District of Beaufort and a Provisional Corps which he led at the battle of Wyse Fork before officially being designated the XXIII Corps . Governor of Ohio . Before mustering out of the Army on January 1 , 1866 , Cox was elected governor of Ohio . He served from 1866 to 1867 , but his moderate views on African - American suffrage and his endorsement of President Andrew Johnson ' s Reconstruction policy caused the Ohio Republicans to reject him for renomination . He then moved to Cincinnati to practice law . Secretary of the Interior . Cox was appointed Secretary of the Interior by Ulysses S . Grant upon his inauguration in March 1869 , serving until November 1870 . He was an effective advocate of civil service reform and introduced a merit system for appointees . However , after President Grant failed to back him up against party politicians , who thrived on the patronage system then rampant in the Interior Department , Cox resigned . Grant ' s own view on Cox ' s resignation however was that , " The trouble was that General Cox thought the Interior Department was the whole government , and that Cox was the Interior Department . " Later years . After leaving the Interior Department , Cox was considered as a U . S . Senate candidate in the 1872 election , but the Ohio legislature selected a less conservative candidate . From 1873 to 1878 he served as president and as receiver of the Toledo and Wabash Railroad . He was elected as a reform Republican to the United States House of Representatives from Toledo in 1876 . He served a single term from 1877 to 1879 and declined to be renominated . He then returned to Cincinnati , serving as Dean of the Cincinnati Law School from 1881 to 1897 and as President of the University of Cincinnati from 1885 to 1889 . After retiring from his position as dean , President William McKinley urged him to accept the position of U . S . ambassador to Spain , but Cox declined . Built in 1880 , Cox ' s home in Cincinnati is still in existence ; it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places . During his later years , Cox was a prolific author . His works include " Atlanta " ( published in 1882 ) ; " The March to the Sea : Franklin and Nashville " ( 1882 ) ; " The Second Battle of Bull Run " ( 1882 ) ; " The Battle of Franklin , Tennessee " ( 1897 ) ; and " Military Reminiscences of the Civil War " ( 1900 ) . Cox died on summer vacation at Gloucester , Massachusetts . He is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery , Cincinnati . Family . Cox was the father of the painter Kenyon Cox ; his grandson , Allyn Cox , also won fame as a muralist .