Two Presidents, Two Confederates, and a Union Surgeon

This article originally appeared in the Union-Sun & Journal as part of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War observation. I enjoyed writing these articles. Maybe I should write a series about the 100th anniversary of the US involvement in World War I?

Beneath a towering, nearly 200-year old oak tree among the rolling hills of Cold Springs Cemetery is the unmarked grave of Robert Crooke Wood.   The son-in-law of Zachary Taylor, brother-in-law of Jefferson Davis and father of two well-known Confederate officers, Wood has been left to lie in relative obscurity.

According to his enlistment papers, Robert Wood was born in 1799 in Newport, R.I., and educated at Columbia College for Medical Sciences.  While at Fort Crawford, Wisconsin, possibly studying under Dr. William Beaumont (recently transferred from Fort Niagara), Wood met Anne Mackall Taylor, daughter of Colonel Zachary Taylor, commander of the fort.  They married on September 20, 1829 at the fort, and Wood enlisted as a surgeon on July 4, 1836 with a commission in the Medical Staff Regiment Regular Army. 

While stationed at Fort Crawford, the family regularly moved around the territory as dictated by surgical needs.  During this time, a young soldier, Jefferson Davis, a soldier under Taylor’s command, married Taylor’s younger daughter, Sarah making Wood and Davis brothers-in-law.  Taylor opposed the match because of the harshness of outpost life.  Therefore, Davis resigned from the army to marry Sarah.  Unfortunately, three months after their marriage both newlyweds contracted malaria and Sarah died.

Robert Wood’s eldest son, John Taylor Wood, was born at Fort Snelling, Minnesota and is credited as the first white birth in Minnesota.  A second son, Robert Crooke, Jr., was born two years later at the same fort.  In 1837, both Taylor and Wood were ordered to Fort Brooke, Florida to take on the Seminoles in the Second Seminole War. 

Next in 1839, Wood is ordered to Buffalo where he became Post Surgeon at the Buffalo Barracks which were constructed that October to house troops due to “unease” with Canada after the Patriot’s War.  Wood remained at this posting until 1846, when he was called away to serve in the Mexican-American War.  Acting as the now General Taylor’s personal physician during the war and into his short Presidency, Wood obviously had a close relationship with him.

According to the Niagara County Deeds Index, Robert C. Wood purchased property in Lower Lockport in 1849.  Coincidentally, President Taylor was stricken ill while on a trip from Erie, Pennsylvania to Niagara Falls and was attended by Dr. Wood at either the Eagle House in Lockport or the Eagle Tavern in Niagara Falls.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Robert Crooke Wood was promoted to a full Colonel on June 14, 1862, and was named Assistant Surgeon General.  He was in charge of Medical Affairs in the Armies of the West and Southwest headquartered in St. Louis and in Louisville.  Near the end of the war, Wood was brevetted Brigadier General for his “faithful and meritorious services during the war.”

While Robert Crooke Wood was serving in the Union Army, his sons joined the Southern forces and his brother-in-law, Jefferson Davis became President of the Confederacy.  Robert Crooke Jr., was appointed to Braxton Bragg’s staff and served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Mississippi Cavalry while John Taylor became a lieutenant in the Confederate Navy.

John Taylor Wood had entered the Naval Academy in June 1847, graduating second in his class in 1853.  In 1855 he was promoted to lieutenant, but tendered his resignation April 21, 1861 due to reservations about the growing conflict between the northern and southern states.  The Navy, however, refused his resignation and instead dismissed him from the service effective from the 2^nd of April.  This “slap in the face” by the Navy swung him from his relative neutrality into enlisting in the Confederate Navy in Louisiana on October 4, 1861, where he had a distinguished career.

In January 1862, John was assigned as a lieutenant to the CSS Virginia, which was being reconstructed from the USS Merrimack at Norfolk, VA.  He commanded the ship’s aft gun during the famous battle with the USS Monitor off Hampton Roads and again two months later when the ships collided in the Battle of Drewry’s Bluff.  Later he was appointed by Davis as his aide-de-camp with the rank of colonel, giving John simultaneously similar rank in both the Army and the Navy.  He remained close with his uncle being present at Davis’ capture by Union troops in May 1865.

Robert Crooke Wood, well liked, respected and honored with rank, served his country with distinction.  His two sons were likewise dedicated to the Southern Cause.  Robert CrookeWood was stricken on Easter Sunday, 1869, in New York City and died.  His remains were returned to Lockport for burial at Cold Springs Cemetery.  Was a man from such a prominent family buried without a marker?   Was the gigantic oak tree in the family plot his only memorial, still living on a century and a half after his death?