Alan J. Pitts
Re: Capt. Cobb
Fri Jul 27 18:48:00 2001


It's an interesting story. As I recall, the incident took place on the night of June 4, 1865 at his home near present-day Jemison AL. At least one other pro-Confederate in the area was also hung. A detachment from Col. Chrysler's 21st New York Cavalry pursued the killers unsuccessfully. The Cobb family believed there was a considerable group of masked men in the group, but no one was ever charged with either of these murders.

I produced a paper for the Alabama State Historical Society on this topic about ten years ago. It covered Capt. West's home guard, the Blackwell killings and Cobb's murder. Some of the paper was based on oral history. I learned very quickly that one didn't just walk into a gathering in Shelby or Chilton County and start asking questions about this. Some folks still harbor some rather strong feelings about "the killings", as they call it.

For instance, my 88-year old mother-in-law clearly remembers being told as a child, "Have nothing to do with them black Cobbs". The Cobbs were termed "black" because there was Indian blood in the family and they were known to have dark, swarthy skin. Her view on the matter is that Captain Cobb got what was coming to him.

I have written about the identity of Blackwell in other message board posts. It would be interesting to know more about him and strengthen the tenuous bit of evidence that linked him to Shelby County. The idea that a group of men could establish themselves in a community like Montevallo and ride out to kill people at random still astonishes me. I can assure you, however, that the governor's papers at the ADAH are full of similar stories from the last half (1863-65) of the war. The countryside must have been absolutely chaotic.

If you'd like to see the paper, I'll see if I can fish it up from one of my boxes in the basement.