Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox (1824 - 1890)

Born 20 May 1824 in Greene County, North Carolina

Died 2 Dec 1890 at age 66 in Washington, District of Columbia

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Biography

Cadmus Wilcox is Notable.

Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox was the second son of Reuben and Sarah (Garland) Wilcox. Born in 1824 in North Carolina, Cadmus moved with his family to Tennessee at the age of 2. It's uncertain when his father died leaving Sarah to raise three sons and a daughter on her own. Somehow Sarah was able to afford sending Cadmus to Cumberland College but shortly he was accepted into the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, where he graduated in the class of 1846.

Cadmus was almost immediately hurried to Mexico as a lowly brevetted second lieutenant in order to fight in the Mexican War. He proved himself worthy of promotion and came out of the hostilities a brevetted first lieutenant on September 13, 1847, promoted for Gallant and Meritorious Conduct in the Battle of Chapultepec, Mexico.

After serving in various locations out on America's frontiers, working as an assistant instructor at West Point and being sent overseas to study tactics, Cadmus was a captain in 1861 when the Civil War broke out. Young Wilcox was a likeable person and had many friends from his days at West Point both as a student and later as an instructor's assistant, and it tore on him to decide which side of the war to join. His older brother John (a former US Congressman and a strong states rights proponent in favor of secession) must have influenced him greatly as he went with the south as soon as Tennessee seceded.

Cadmus traveled from his last posting in the US Army in New Mexico to Richmond, Virginia where he was immediately commissioned a captain of artillery in the Confederate Army on March 16. He was later promoted to colonel and given command of the 9th Alabama Infantry Regiment on July 9. From that point on, Cadmus would command men in almost every major eastern theater engagement of the Civil War. From Manassas to the Peninsula Campaign to the Second Bull Run to the Battle of Chancellorsville and on to Gettysburg. By this time Cadmus had risen to the rank of major general, and on he served leading men through heavy fighting, from the Overland Campaign all the way through to Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House.

After the war, and after being pardoned, Wilcox would settle in Washington, D.C. Although offered lucrative work serving foreign governments' as a military advisor, he stayed on in Washington to care for his brother's (John had suddenly died in 1864) widow and daughter. Uncle Cad as he was known would work several menial jobs for the government until, in 1886, President Cleveland appointed him land chief of the railroad office of the Land Office. Cadmus held that position until his death on December 2, 1890.

So universally esteemed was Wilcox that at his funeral his eight pallbearers included four Confederate and four Union generals.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Cadmus M Wilcox

• Wikidata: Item Q2038012, en:Wikipedia

• Class of 1846, United States Military Academy. [1]

• An Account of Cadmus Wilcox at Gettysburg: http://schwartz.eng.auburn.edu/ACW/lrtmap.docs/wilcox.html

• From Blue to Gray: The Life of Confederate General Cadmus M. Wilcox, by Gerard A. Patterson. Stackpole Books, 2001. [2]

• "United States Mexican War Pension Index, 1887-1926," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K8HH-BYM : 13 March 2018), Cadmus M Wilcox, 1888; citing Pension, District Of Columbia, NARA microfilm publication T317 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 537,012.

• Annual Reunion, United States Military Academy. Association of Graduates. The Association, 1890. Page 27. [3]

• "District of Columbia Deaths, 1874-1961," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F7RR-VRD : accessed 28 July 2018), Cadmus M. Wilcox, 02 Dec 1890, District of Columbia, United States; citing reference ID cn 74935, District Records Center, Washington D.C.; FHL microfilm 2,135,908.

• Find A Grave: Memorial #11110 accessed on 19 Aug 2018