Francis Cockrell

Francis Marion Cockrell (October 1, 1834 – December 13, 1915) was a Confederate military commander and American politician from the state of Missouri. He served as a United States senator from Missouri for five terms. He was a prominent member of the famed South–Cockrell–Hargis family of Southern politicians.

Early life and family Cockrell was born in Warrensburg, Missouri, the son of Nancy (Ellis) and Joseph Cockrell, the sheriff of Johnson County. His older brother was Jeremiah Vardaman Cockrell, who was a congressman from Texas in the 1890s. Francis Cockrell attended local schools and Chapel Hill College in Lafayette County, Missouri, graduating in July 1853; He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1855, practicing law in Warrensburg until the outbreak of the Civil War.

Cockrell was married three times. His first wife, Arthusa Dorcas Stapp (1830–1859), with whom he had three sons. His second wife, Anna E. Mann (1840–1871) of Kentucky, died of consumption. In July 1873, he married Anna Ewing (1846–1894), the eldest daughter of Judge Ephraim Brevard Ewing from Missouri.

Civil War At the beginning of the American Civil War in 1861, Cockrell joined the Missouri State Guard as a Captain. He went on to fight in many of the battles of the 1864 Atlanta campaign, and participated in Hood's Tennessee Campaign later that year where he was wounded at the Battle of Franklin on November 30, 1864. In 1865, Cockrell commanded a division in defence of Fort Blakeley, Alabama. On April 9, 1865, shortly before the war ended, Cockrell was captured there but was paroled on May 14. he served in the Senate from 1875 to 1905, when he retired. He held several committee chairmanships, including the chairmanships of the Claims Committee, Engrossed Bills Committee and Appropriations Committee during his senate career. He received 42 votes for President of the United States at the 1904 Democratic National Convention, but was defeated by Alton B. Parker.

He was appointed to the Interstate Commerce Commission by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905, serving in that capacity until 1910. In 1911, he was appointed commissioner to negotiate the boundaries between the state of Texas and the New Mexico Territory, which was about to become a state. In 1913, Woodrow Wilson appointed him as the civilian member on the Board of Ordnance and Fortifications for the War Department, where he served until his death in Washington, D.C.