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.