Thomas R. R. Cobb

Thomas R. R. Cobb, a brilliant Constitutional lawyer before the war, left his practice to take up arms for the South and at Fredericksburg fought his first battle as a brigadier general commanding a Georgia brigade. Determined to do well, he responded to instructions that he must fall back if the troops on his left gave way by saying, "Well! If they wait for me to fall back, they will wait a long time." Cobb suffered a mortal wound when a Union artillery shell crashed through the Stephens house behind his position and exploded, sending shrapnel into his thigh, and he died a few hours later. Although Cobb was a Georgian, his mother had grown up in Fredericksburg, and her childhood home, Federal Hill, stood on the outskirts of town within sight of his position. Later accounts claimed that the shot that killed him was fired from the vicinity of his mother's house.

Fredericksburg, Virginia · United States