Howell Cobb Thomas Howell Cobb ( September 7 , 1815 – October 9 , 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 President 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 . Early life and career . Born in Jefferson County , Georgia , Cobb was raised in Athens , Georgia , and attended the University of Georgia where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Literary Society . He was of Welsh American ancestry . He was admitted to the bar in 1836 and became solicitor general of the western judicial circuit of Georgia . He married Mary Ann Lamar on May 26 , 1835 . They would have eleven children , the first in 1838 and the last in 1861 . They were John Addison , Zachariah Lamar , Howell , Henry Jackson , Basil Lamar , Mary Ann Lamar , Laura Rootes , Sarah , Andrew Jackson , Elizabeth Craig , and Thomas Reade Rootes . Several did not survive out of childhood , including their last , a son who was named after Howell ' s brother , Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb . Congressman . He was elected as Democrat to the 28th , 29th , 30th and 31st Congresses . He was chairman of the U . S . House Committee on Mileage during the 28th Congress , and Speaker of the United States House of Representatives during the 31st Congress . He sided with President Andrew Jackson on the question of nullification ; was an efficient supporter of President James K . Polk ' s administration during the Mexican - American War ; and was an ardent advocate of slavery extension into the territories , but when the Compromise of 1850 had been agreed upon , he became its staunch supporter as a Union Democrat . He joined Georgia Whigs Alexander Stephens and Robert Toombs in a statewide campaign to elect delegates to a state convention that overwhelmingly affirmed , in the Georgia Platform , that the state accepted the Compromise as the final resolution to the outstanding slavery issues . On that issue , Cobb was elected governor of Georgia by a large majority . Speaker of the House . In 1850 , as Speaker he would have been next in line to the Presidency for two days due to Vice Presidential vacancy and a president pro tempore not being appointed yet , except he did not meet the minimum eligibility for the presidency of being 35 years old . When Zachary Taylor died on July 9 , Vice President Millard Fillmore became President . The president pro tempore of the Senate was not appointed until July 11 when William Rufus de Vane King took that position . Governor of Georgia . In 1851 , he left the House to serve as the Governor of Georgia , holding that post until 1853 . He published " A Scriptural Examination of the Institution of Slavery " ( 1856 ) . Return to Congress and Secretary of the Treasury . He was elected to the 34th Congress and then took the position of Secretary of the Treasury in Buchanan ' s Cabinet . He served for three years , resigning in December 1860 . At one time , Cobb was Buchanan ' s choice for his successor . A Founder of the Confederacy . In 1860 , Cobb ceased to be a Unionist , and became a leader of the secession movement . He was president of a convention of the seceded states that assembled in Montgomery , Alabama , on February 4 , 1861 . Under Cobb ' s guidance , the delegates drafted a constitution for the new Confederacy . He served as President of several sessions of the Confederate Provisional Congress , before resigning to join the military when war erupted . Civil War . Cobb enlisted in the Confederate Army and was named as colonel of the 16th Georgia Infantry . He was appointed a brigadier general on February 13 , 1862 , and assigned command of a brigade in what became the Army of Northern Virginia . Between February and June 1862 , he represented the Confederate authorities in negotiations with Union officers for an agreement on the exchange of prisoners of war . His efforts in these discussions contributed to the Dix - Hill Cartel accord reached in July 1862 . Cobb saw combat during the Peninsula Campaign and the Seven Days Battles . Cobb ' s brigade played a key role in the fighting at Crampton ' s Gap during the Battle of South Mountain , where it arrived at a critical time to delay a Union advance through the gap . His men also fought at the subsequent Battle of Antietam . In October 1862 , Cobb was detached from the Army of Northern Virginia and sent to the District of Middle Florida . He was promoted to major general on September 9 , 1863 , and placed in command of the District of Georgia and Florida . He suggested the construction of a prisoner - of - war camp in southern Georgia , a location thought to be safe from Union invaders . This idea led to the creation of Andersonville prison . When William T . Sherman ' s armies entered Georgia during the 1864 Atlanta Campaign and subsequent March to the Sea , General Cobb commanded the Georgia reserve corps . In the spring of 1865 , with the Confederacy clearly waning , he and his troops were sent to Columbus , Georgia to help oppose Wilson ' s Raid . He led the hopeless Confederate resistance in the Battle of Columbus , Georgia on Easter Sunday , April 16 , 1865 . During Sherman ' s March to the Sea , the army camped one night near Cobb ' s plantation . When Sherman discovered that the house he planned to stay in for the night belonged to Cobb , whom Sherman described in his " Memoirs " as " one of the leading rebels of the South , then a general in the Southern army , " he confiscated Cobb ' s property and leveled the plantation , instructing his subordinates to " spare nothing . " In the closing days of the war , Cobb fruitlessly opposed General Robert E . Lee ' s eleventh hour proposal of enlisting slaves into the army . Fearing this move 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 . " He surrendered at Macon , Georgia , April 20 , 1865 . Postbellum . Following the war , Cobb returned home and resumed his law practice , but despite pressure from his former constituents and soldiers , he refused to make any public remarks on Reconstruction policy until he received a presidential pardon , although he privately opposed it . Finally receiving that document in early 1868 , he then vigorously opposed the Reconstruction Acts , making a series of speeches that summer that bitterly denounced the policies of the reigning Radical Republicans in Congress . Taking a break from his schedule of political speeches , Cobb decided to vacation in New York City in the autumn . He died of a heart attack there . His body was returned to Athens , Georgia , for burial in Oconee Hill Cemetery . Thomas Willis Cobb was a cousin and Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb a younger brother of Howell Cobb . His great uncle and namesake , Howell Cobb , had been a U . S . Congressman from 1807 – 1812 , and then served as an officer in the War of 1812 . A niece was Mildred Lewis Rutherford .