Howell Cobb

Howell Cobb was elected as a Democrat to the US Congress (1843-1851) and served as chairman of the Committee on Mileage and then Speaker of the House of Representatives (22 Dec 1849 - 3 Mar 1851). From 5 Nov 1851 to 9 Nov 1853, Cobb held the office of governor of Georgia and again was elected to the Congress in 1855-1857. Secretary of the Treasury in the Cabinet of President James Buchanan, Cobb served from 6 Mar 1857 to 10 Dec 1860, when he resigned. At the first meeting of the Confederacy's provisional Congress in Montgomery, Alabama, on 4 Feb 1861, Cobb was elected its president by acclamation after his candidacy was proposed by Robert Rhett. Cobb was considered for the presidency of Confederate States, but eventually Jefferson Davis and Alexander H. Stephens were elected president and vice president. He swore an oath on the Constitution of the Provisional Government on 9 Feb 1861, the day when the Congress approved this document. Cobb presided over five sessions of the provisional Congress until 17 Feb 1862, when the Congress adjourned on the eve of inauguration of permanent congress composed of Senate and House of Representatives. After the congress Cobb gave up politics in order to join the army. He was appointed a brigadier general in the Confederate Army on 13 Feb 1862, and promoted to major general on 9 Sep 1863. Cobb surrendered to the federal troops at Macon, Georgia, on 20 Apr 1864. Financially ruined by his pre-war debts and loss of property during the war, he died in 1868 while visiting New York. [2][3]