Part 4

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.

E. BURD GRUBB.

Transcriber's Notes:

Small caps have been replaced with ALL CAPS text.

On the title page, "Moorestown Ppinting" was replaced with "Moorestown Printing".

On page 11, On page 11, a Frenchman was referred to as "Duke de Charteres" but on page 9 he was referred to as "Duke de Chartres". Other sources show that the Duke of Chartres was at the battle, so the reference on page 11 was changed to "Duke de Chartres".

On page 13, a period was added after "happened just here".

On page 14, a period was added after "at that time".

On page 18, "creek at a fort" was replaced with "creek at a ford".

On page 21, "Very vell" was replaced with "Very well".

On page 23, "containng" was replaced with "containing".

On page 31, "chargres fever" was replaced with "chagres fever".