CROCKER, Marcellus M.

CROCKER

Posted By: Webmaster (email)
Date: 12/18/2002 at 13:58:31

MARCELLUS M. CROCKER, lawyer and soldier, was born in Johnson County,
Indiana, February 6, 1830. With his father's family he came to Jefferson
County, Iowa, in 1844, where he attracted the notice of Shepherd Leffler, who
was a member of Congress living at Burlington. When Crocker was sixteen
years of age he had acquired an education. Leffler and General A.C. Dodge,
who was a United States Senator, joined in securing him the appointment of
cadet in the Military Academy at West Point. He entered upon his military
education, but the death of his father made it necessary for him to leave the
Academy before he could graduate. It was in the fall of 1849 when he
returned home to look after the affairs of his father's estate that he
entered the office of Judge Olney and took up the study of law. In the
course of two years he was admitted to the bar and began practice at
Lancaster, in Keokuk County. In the spring of 1854 he removed to Des Moines
and entered into a partnership with D.O. Finch. In 1857 he and P.M. Casady
became partners in the practice of law and soon after J.S. Polk became a
member of the firm. Mr. Crocker became in a few years one of the most
prominent and successfull lawyers in central Iowa. He was attending court at
Adel when the news of the firing of Fort Sumter was received. He returned to
Des Moines and made a thrilling address at a war meeting. From this time
forward he was an uncompromising Union man, supporting Lincoln's
administration, although he had been a firm Democrat from boyhood. He at
once began to raise a company for the war, which became Company D of the
Second Volunteer Infantry. In the winter following he was promoted to a
Brigadier-General. He took an active part in the battles of Shiloh and
Corinth, and in the latter commanded a brigade which was composed of the
Eleventh, Thirteenth, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Iowa regiments and became one
of the most famous of the Army of Tennessee. He was promoted to
Major-General and placed in command of the Seventh Division of the
Seventeenth Army Corps, which fought most gallantly with heavy loss at the
battles of Jackson and Champion's Hill. In this campaign under the eye of
General Grant, that great chieftain pronounced Crocker "competent to command
an army." In 1863 he came home on sick leave. While in Des Moines the
Republican State Convention was in session, and there was a movement
inaugurated to nominate him for Governor. But he declined the honor with a
remark: "If a soldier is worth anything he cannot be spared from the field;
if he is worthless, he will not make a good Governor." His last active
service in the Civil War was with Sherman in the march to the sea, where his
health began to fail. Early in the summer he was transferred to a command in
New Mexico where it was hoped the climate would be beneficial to him. But he
was already stricken with a fatal malady and in June, 1865, he went to
Washington where he was prostrated with sickness, but lingered until August
26, when he passed away at the early age of thirty-five.

Debbie Clough G-erischer