Congressman, Speaker of the House, Governor, Secretary of the Treasury, Civil War Confederate Major General. He was born in Jefferson City, Georgia, but as a child, his family moved to Athens, Georgia. (Including brother Thomas Reade Roots Cobb, a future lawyer and Confederate Brigadier General.) He graduated from the University of Georgia in 1834. He was admitted to the bar in 1836. He served as a congressman from 1843 to 1851. During this time he was Speaker of the House from 1849 to 1851. He then went home to Georgia to serve as Governor from 1851 to 1853. He then returned to Congress serving in the House from 1855 to 1857. He was a close friend of James Buchanan, in whose nomination and election as the 15th President of the United States he played an important role. In 1857 Buchanan rewarded him by naming him secretary of the treasury. An advocate of compromise until the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency, he addressed a letter in December 1860 to the people of Georgia urging immediate secession. In February 1861, when delegates from the seceding states met in Montgomery, Alabama, to organize the Confederacy, he chaired the convention and enjoyed some support for the presidency. He soon became known as an opponent of Jefferson Davis. While serving as speaker of the Provisional Congress, he organized the 16th Georgia Infantry, accompanying it to Yorktown as its Colonel. He was named a Brigadier General on February 12, 1862 and led his brigade creditably on the retreat up the Peninsula and in the Seven Days' Campaign. After fighting with the brigade at Crampton's Gap on September 14, 1862, and three days later at Antietam, he was detached from the Army of Northern Virginia in October and returned to Georgia. On September 9, 1863, he became a Major General and was placed in command of the District of Georgia and Florida. In this role he was responsible for the suggestion that led to the establishment of the prison at Andersonville. In 1864 he commanded the Georgia reserve corps in the Georgia Campaign. He was involved in the operations to halt Wilson's raid through Alabama in the spring of 1865. After the fall of the Confederacy he resumed his law practice and vigorously opposed the reconstruction policies of the Radical Republicans. He died in New York City while on a business trip and was taken back to his beloved Georgia for burial.