John Cochrane (General)

John Cochrane

John Cochrane (born August 27, 1813 in Palatine , Montgomery County , New York , †  February 7, 1898 in New York City ) was an American officer and politician . Between 1857 and 1861 he represented New York State in the US House of Representatives ; subsequently he held the rank of brigadier general in the Union army during the civil war .

Career

John Cochrane attended Union College in Schenectady and then until 1831 Hamilton College in Clinton . After studying law and being admitted to the bar in 1834, he began to work in this profession in Palatine. Later he also practiced in Oswego and Schenectady. In 1846 he moved to New York City. Politically, he joined the Democratic Party . In the presidential election of 1852 he campaigned for the Democratic candidate Franklin Pierce . After his election victory and inauguration, he appointed Cochrane to the overseer of the New York harbor . He held this office until 1857.

In the congressional election of 1856 , Cochrane was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC in the sixth constituency of New York , where he succeeded John Wheeler on March 4, 1857 . After being re-elected, he was able to complete two legislative terms in Congress until March 3, 1861 . These were shaped by the events in the immediate run-up to the civil war. Between 1857 and 1859, Cochrane chaired the trade committee. In 1860 he was not re-elected. In the same year he was a delegate at the two Democratic National Conventions in Charleston and Baltimore .

Between June 11, 1861 and February 25, 1863, John Cochrane was an officer in the Union Army. He made it to the brigadier general. Then he quit military service, officially for health reasons. Probably the real reason for his resignation was personal differences with other generals. Between 1864 and 1865 he held the office of Attorney General in New York State. In 1864 the Radical Republicans , the radical wing of the Republican Party, nominated him as their vice-presidential candidate. However, presidential candidate John C. Frémont withdrew his application before the election and Cochrane followed suit. In May 1868 he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Chicago , where Ulysses S. Grant was nominated as a presidential candidate. That same year he worked for the New York State Sixth District Treasury. President Grant offered him the post of ambassador to Uruguay and Paraguay , which he refused. In 1872, Cochrane joined the short-lived Liberal Republican Party . He was a delegate to their federal party convention in Cincinnati . He later returned to the Democrats. He was also active in the Tammany Hall . In 1872 and 1883 he was a member of the New York City Council . In 1889 he was a police judge in New York for a short time. He died there on February 7, 1898.

Web links

• John Cochrane in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

predecessor	Office	successor
John Wheeler	United States House Representative for New York (6th constituency) March 4, 1857 - March 3, 1861	Frederick A. Conkling