208 CONFEDERATE MILITARY HISTORY.

in command of a brigade, on March 8, 1864, he was commissioned by the Confederate government as brigadier-general. He served with honor in company with such dashing leaders as Marmaduke and Shelby. After the war he returned to his home and resumed the practice of law. He served his State in Congress from 1873 to 1883 and on December 4, 1883, was chosen clerk of the House of Representatives.

Brigadier-General Francis Marion Cockrell, who during an important era of the war had the distinction of commanding the Missouri brigade of the army of Mississippi, and since then has for nearly a quarter-century represented Missouri in the United States Senate, was born in Johnson county, October i, 1834. He was graduated at Chapel Hill college in 1853, and subsequently entered upon the practice of law, in which he has continued for many years with distinguished success. He entered the service of the Missouri State Guard, for the support of the Confederacy, in May, 1861, as a private in Company G of Colonel Hurst's regiment. He was at once made captain of his company, and served in that rank six months, the period of enlistment. He then organized a company for the Second Missouri infantry, mustered in as Company H. At the reorganization of this command in May, 1862, the regimental vote was a tie between him and Colonel Burbridge for the chief command, and Burbridge was continued as colonel, and Cockrell promoted to lieutenant-colonel. Six weeks later the latter was promoted colonel, the rank he held until after the siege of Vicksburg. In command of his company of Missouri militia he and they fought like veterans under the command of General Price at the important battles of Carthage, Wilson's Creek and the siege of Lexington, in 1861, and at Elkhorn Tavern in March, 1862. With Price's army he crossed the Mississippi about the time of the battle of Shiloh, and after