Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 4.djvu/130

  I in the organization of the regiment. He was a gallant soldier and was promoted to major in September, 1861, to colonel in 1864 and brevetted Brigadier-General in March, 1865. He located in Alabama at the close of the war and was elected to the Legislature during the reconstruction period. Mr. Coon was appointed by President Hayes Consul to Babaca, Cuba. In 1875 he went to San Diego, California, as Superintendent of the Chinese Exclusion Law, where he was killed by the accidental discharge of a pistol on the 17th of December, 1893. GEORGE B. CORKHILL, lawyer, soldier and editor, was born in Harrison County, Ohio, in 1838. In 1847 the family removed to Iowa, locating at Mount Pleasant. He graduated from the Wesleyan University of Mount Pleasant, afterwards taking the law course at Harvard University. He was admitted to the bar at Mount Pleasant and began practice; but in 1862 entered the Union army, having been appointed by President Lincoln Commissary of Subsistence and assigned to the Army of the Potomac, where he served until the close of the war, having been promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. After leaving the army be became a law partner of A. H. Bereman at St. Louis for a time but returned to Mount Pleasant and in 1869 was appointed District Attorney of the First District. He was later appointed clerk of the United States District Court for Iowa. Mr. Corkhill was for some time private secretary to Senator Harlan and was special agent of the Department of the Interior under him. He was editor-in-chief of the Washington Chronicle for some time. In 1880 he was appointed by President Hayes United States District Attorney for the District of Columbia and acquired national fame in conducting the prosecution of Guiteau, the assassin of President Garfield. He also prosecuted the suits against the famous “Star Route” officials. Colonel Corkhill was a life-long Republican. His first wife was Olive B. Miller, the eldest daughter of Judge Samuel F. Miller, Iowa member of the United States Supreme Court. Colonel Corkhill died at Mount Pleasant July 6, 1886, from disability contracted during the war. JOHN M. CORSE was born April 27, 1835, at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. In 1842 his father removed to the new Territory of Iowa, locating at Burlington. The son, John, after acquiring an education became a clerk in a drug and book store. In 1853 General A. C. Dodge, who was a friend of the father, secured the son an appointment in the Military Academy at West Point. After two years' instruction he left the Academy and engaged in business with his father at Burlington. Later he studied law with C. Ben Darwin, finally took the law course at Albany, New York, and was admitted to the bar. He was a “Douglas Democrat” and in 1860 received the nomination of that party for Secretary of State, but with his party was defeated. When the Civil War began he helped raise men