John Cox Underwood (September 12, 1840 – October 29, 1913) was an American civil engineer,

Confederate Confederacy or confederate may refer to: States or communities * Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities * Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...

veteran, journalist and the 21st

Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky The lieutenant governor of Kentucky was created under the state's second constitution, which was ratified in 1799. The inaugural officeholder was Alexander Scott Bullitt, who took office in 1800 following his election to serve under James Garrard ...

(serving in that capacity from 1875 to 1879).

Early and family life

Underwood was born in

Georgetown, Washington, D.C. Georgetown is a historic neighborhood, and commercial and entertainment district located in Northwest Washington, D.C., situated along the Potomac River. Founded in 1751 in the Province of Maryland, the port of Georgetown predated the establish ...

on September 12, 1840, the son of U.S. Representative Joseph Rogers Underwood (1791-1876) and his second wife, Elizabeth Threlkeld Cox (1818-1884). His grandfather John Cox (1775-1849) was the mayor of Georgetown (and a slaveholder) from 1823 until 1845, before it was annexed into

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He attended local private schools, then

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, from which he received a civil engineering degree in 1862. He married Drucilla Duncan Underwood (1844-1905) and they had two daughters, Helen Underwood Hine (1873-1958), and her sister Drucilla Underwood Grant.

Career

After graduation, although his father was a Unionist, John Underwood enlisted in Breckenridge's Division, Engineer Corps of the

Confederate States Army The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting ...

, and served in Virginia and Tennessee. His uncle John Threlkeld Cox (1820-1886) was also a civil engineer and led several different Confederate cavalry brigades, mostly of Kentucky volunteers. Young John Underwood soon contracted

typhoid fever Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, is a disease caused by '' Salmonella'' serotype Typhi bacteria. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often there is a gradual onset of a high fever over several ...

, and was captured in 1863 at

Tullahoma, Tennessee Tullahoma is a city in Coffee and Franklin counties in southern Middle Tennessee, United States. The population was 20,339 at the 2020 census. In 2019, the population was estimated to be 19,555. It is the principal city of the Tullahoma micropol ...

. Imprisoned in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

and

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, he received a parol from President

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...

. After the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

, Underwood became

Bowling Green A bowling green is a finely laid, close-mown and rolled stretch of turf for playing the game of bowls. Before 1830, when Edwin Beard Budding of Thrupp, near Stroud, UK, invented the lawnmower, lawns were often kept cropped by grazing sheep on ...

's City Engineer, and designed Fountain Square Park. He also served as Bowling Green's mayor in 1870-71 and edited newspapers in Bowling Green, Cincinnati and

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

. He was a member of the Odd Fellows, and was elected Lieutenant Governor under

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

James B. McCreary. However, his bid to become Kentucky's governor in 1879 failed, and

Luke P. Blackburn Luke Pryor Blackburn (June 16, 1816September 14, 1887) was an American physician, philanthropist, and politician from Kentucky. He was elected the 28th governor of Kentucky, serving from 1879 to 1883. Until the election of Ernie Fletcher in 200 ...

of Louisville received the nomination. For the rest of his Life, Underwood was devoted to genealogy and the

Lost Cause The Lost Cause of the Confederacy (or simply Lost Cause) is an American pseudohistorical negationist mythology that claims the cause of the Confederate States during the American Civil War was just, heroic, and not centered on slavery. First ...

of the Confederacy through the

United Confederate Veterans The United Confederate Veterans (UCV, or simply Confederate Veterans) was an American Civil War veterans' organization headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was organized on June 10, 1889, by ex-soldiers and sailors of the Confederate Sta ...

. He raised money to construct a Confederate Memorial at

Oak Woods Cemetery Oak Woods Cemetery is a large lawn cemetery in Chicago, Illinois. Located at 1035 E. 67th Street, in the Greater Grand Crossing area of Chicago's South Side. Established on February 12, 1853, it covers . Oak Woods is the final resting place o ...

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

to commemorate the Confederate prisoners who died at Camp Douglas, and whose remains were exhumed and moved there after closure of the previous cemetery and expansion of Grant Park during urban renewal following the

Great Chicago Fire The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned in the American city of Chicago during October 8–10, 1871. The fire killed approximately 300 people, destroyed roughly of the city including over 17,000 structures, and left more than 10 ...

of 1871. Underwood then agreed to raise money for a Confederate monument in

Richmond, Virginia (Thus do we reach the stars) , image_map = , mapsize = 250 px , map_caption = Location within Virginia , pushpin_map = Virginia#USA , pushpin_label = Richmond , pushpin_m ...

. However, the project was embroiled in legal controversies which ruined him financially and physically. In 1910, oil portraits of many of the twenty Confederate generals he had commissioned from E.F. Andrews were auctioned by a

Covington, Kentucky Covington is a list of cities in Kentucky, home rule-class city in Kenton County, Kentucky, Kenton County, Kentucky, United States, located at the confluence of the Ohio River, Ohio and Licking River (Kentucky), Licking Rivers. Cincinnati, Ohio, ...

warehouse to pay storage fees, and most ended up in Virginia. By that time, Underwood's wife had died and he lived in

Manhattan, New York Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

and described himself in the census as an author.

Death and legacy

John Cox Underwood died on October 29, 1913, in Manhattan, New York City. His remains were returned to Kentucky for burial in the family plot at Fairview cemetery in Bowling Green.

Western Kentucky University Western Kentucky University is a public university in Bowling Green, Kentucky. It was founded by the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1906, though its roots reach back a quarter-century earlier. It operates regional campuses in Glasgow, Elizabethtow ...

has several of his commissioned paintings and maintains some of his papers (as well as those of his Unionist father and paternal uncle), including letters available online.http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2678&context=dlsc_mss_fin_aid

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Underwood, John C. Lieutenant Governors of Kentucky People from Georgetown, Kentucky 1913 deaths 1840 births 19th-century American politicians