Identity:

Cornelius Marcellus Wilcox was a Division Commander in the army of the Confederate States of America.

Life:

He graduated from West Point with George B. McClellan and Stonewall Jackson (1846), served in Mexico and in frontier American posts and as an instructor at West Point where he wrote Rifles and Rifle Practice (1859), the first American book on the subject.

Cadmus Wilcox resigned his US Army Captaincy in June of 1861 and accepted an appointment as Colonel of the 9th AL Infantry. He became a Brigadier Generall early on (21 October 1861), and was assigned to Major General James Longstreet's Division. He fought in the Seven Days' battles, W 2nd Manassas, distibguished himself at Chancellorsville and in the Gettysburg Campaign. He was promoted to Major Generall and sent to command a division in Hill's Third Corps, where he was involved in fighting in The Wilderness, at Spotsylvania, and at Petersburg, Forts Gregg and Alexander. On 9 April 1865, while Wilcox was preparing to attempt to break through the Union lines, Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia.

Following the war, Wilcox lived in Washington, DC; and from 1886 until his death, in 1890, he held the post of chief of the railroad division of the US Government Land Office. He also wrote a History of the Mexican War (edited by his niece in 1892).

Bibliography:

Cullum Memorial Edition, Register of Graduates and former cadets, United States Military Academy, West Point, 1980, No. 1325, p. 239; http://www.ehistory.com (accessed 2005)'