The Episode of the Surgeon
of the Third Regiment
The surgeon of the 3rd New Jersey Regiment was appointed by Governor Olden about ten days after the regiment arrived in Camp Olden. His name was Lorenzo Louis Cox, he was a man about twenty-five years of age. He had a fine appearance, well educated and an excellent surgeon. He was a grandson of Mr. Redmond Cox of Philadelphia, a member of a well known family. Redmond Cox was an intimate friend of my father, but my father had nothing whatever to do with the appointment of Dr. Cox, and did not know of it until after it was made.
After the battle of Bull Run, and during the early autumn the Third Regiment was engaged in erecting Fort Worth, one of the defences of Washington, about a mile west of Alexandria Seminary. Probably the uncovering of so much fresh earth which had to be done in erecting the Fort, which was quite a large one, caused an outbreak of malarial fever, most of it ordinary chills and fever. The sick call was sounded at half-past six every morning and a very large proportion of the regiment filed up to Dr. Cox's tent and received a drink of whiskey and some quinine pills. Those of the Third Regiment who read this will probably remember two very ridiculous occurences in this connection. Dr. Cox had an Irishman who was a private in one of the companies and he was his assistant. The Doctor had a barrel of whiskey in his tent from which he served the rations every morning; he noticed that this whiskey became exhausted more rapidly than in his opinion it should, he therefore poured into the whiskey barrel a very large quantity of quinine, and the consequence was that the next morning his man Patrick was so drunk that he had to be taken down to the creek to be soused to bring him to, and he could not hear for two or three days.
The other occurrence was that one morning on guard mount the Adjutant, whose name was Fairliegh, (an Englishman and the youngest son of Lord Fairliegh), appeared on his horse, which was a light bay and which had been striped with white paint on the ribs during the night and every hair on his tail shaved off. It transpired at the regimental court-martial that Dr. Cox's Patrick was very largely responsible for the damage to the Adjutant's horse. During the months of August and September and also during the whole winter of 1861-1862 the First New Jersey Brigade picketed in front of their lines, and during August and September these pickets were not very far from and in front of Alexandria, not more than three miles at the utmost. The enemy's pickets were very close to ours and a number of skirmishes along the Little River turn pike and the corn fields adjacent thereto occurred. Gradually our picket lines were advanced until, about the latter part of September, we took in Mrs. Fitzhugh's plantation and picketed almost up to Annandale. Dr. Cox and his assistant were out along the picket lines almost every afternoon. Many of the men would be ailing and there was an occasional gun-shot wound that would have to be looked after. Dr. Cox rode a very handsome cream-colored mule, and Patrick had an army horse, Patrick carried the knap-sack of medical stores and surgical instruments strapped on his back. One afternoon Dr. Cox, who had visited Mrs. Fitzhugh's plantation several times, and it was at that time a little outside of our picket lines, started to go there again, when he was pounced upon by six of the Louden scouts, Confederate Cavalry, and, although he tried to make his mule run away from them he could not do so and was captured, Patrick jumped off his horse and ran into the woods and succeeded in getting back into our lines with his medical knap-sack. He reported Dr. Cox killed as there had been several pistol shots fired, Cox was not armed. On the evening of the next day, Dr. Cox returned to the camp of the Third Regiment and reported the facts about as I have related them here to Colonel Taylor, and also to all of the officers of the regiment who were his friends and who were interested in the occurrence. He told us that he had been taken to Mannassas Junction and had been for some time in the tent of General Joseph E. Johnson, the commander of the Rebel Army that then faced us. Everybody was glad of his release which was of course because of his being a non-combattant. He resumed his duties and I do not remember that the incident was spoken of again in the regiment until the following very curious occurrence took place.
When the army advanced on Mannassas Junction in March, 1862, the Third New Jersey Regiment was in the extreme front. The skirmishers of that regiment captured a train of cars loaded with provisions, and were also the first in the Rebel encampment at Mannassas. Some of the members of the regiment entered General Joseph E. Johnson's tent, which had been evacuated so suddenly that a number of his papers and his military sash were left which these men obtained. They naturally examined the papers and were surprised to find a report taken down by a member of General Johnson's staff of the conversation had with Dr. Cox of the Third New Jersey Volunteers. This report stated that Dr. Cox had given General Johnson all the information regarding the troops at and around Alexandria that he desired and that he Cox had particularly stated the number of men which General Montgomery commanded at Alexandria. Fortunately for Cox, the aid stated this number at 10,000, which was what Cox did say, and which was twice as many as Montgomery had. These papers were forwarded to Washington, whether through the headquarters of the regiment or not, I do not know, but a few days after that a squad of the United States Cavalry came to the Third Regiment and the officer in command arrested Dr. Cox and took him to Washington where he was immediately incarcerated in the old Capitol Prison. He remained there for a very considerable time, my impression is for several months. I wrote to my father in regard to this and he went to Washington and had an interview with Edward M. Stanton who was then Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton had been my father's counsel before the war in Lancaster and was an intimate friend of his. He had great trouble to get Mr. Stanton to take the matter up at all, but when he finally did, Cox was found to be innocent, but foolish. He returned to the regiment but only for a few days. The men, and a number of the officers would not receive him, and he resigned and took a position as surgeon of one of the Pacific Mail Steamers in which position he contracted the chagres fever and died. The occurrence was a very sad one. Cox was entirely innocent. He was a perfectly loyal and true man. He was one of the very best surgeons in the army at that time and almost certainly would have had a brilliant career. His military life was cut short, and probably his actual life also from having talked too much. He told me himself, that, in the interview in General Johnson's tent he had purposely given him all the false information that he could think of, and that he had purposely stated Montgomery's troops to be twice their actual strength.
The correspondence in regard to this will be found in the official record, see general index, page 211, Lewis L. Cox 13845.
I have read the correspondence, but the volume in which it is, I do not now find in my collection.
E. Burd Grubb.
I was First Lieutenant of Co. D, 3d N. J. Vols., and Aide de Camp on the staff of Brig. General George W. Taylor, First New Jersey Brigade, during this campaign.