army over to Couch, and through consulting with a "groggy" Hooker it was decided to withdraw the army to defensive lines to the north, with the other commanders (except an embarrassed Howard) strongly advocating an attack instead. Gettysburg Couch requested reassignment after quarreling with Hooker. President Abraham Lincoln offered him command of the Army of the Potomac, but he declined, citing poor health. He commanded the newly created Department of the Susquehanna during the Gettysburg Campaign in 1863. Fort Couch in Lemoyne, Pennsylvania, was constructed under his direction and was named in his honor. Assigned to protect Harrisburg from a threatened attack by Confederates under Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell, Couch directed militia from his department to skirmish with enemy cavalry elements at Sporting Hill, one of the war's northernmost engagements. Couch's militia then joined the pursuit of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland after the Battle of Gettysburg. Subsequent activities Confederates again invaded Couch's Department of the Susquehanna in August 1864, as Brig. Gen. John McCausland burned the town of Chambersburg. In December, Couch returned to the front lines with an assignment to the Western Theater, where he commanded a division in the XXIII Corps of the Army of the Ohio in the Franklin-Nashville Campaign and for the remainder of the war. Couch finished his military service after the Carolinas Campaign in 1865. Postbellum career and death Couch returned to civilian life in Taunton after the war, where he ran unsuccessfully as a Democratic candidate for Governor of Massachusetts in 1865. He later briefly served as president of a mining company in West Virginia. Couch moved to Connecticut in 1871, where he served as the Quartermaster General, and then Adjutant General, for the state militia until 1884. In 1888 he joined the Aztec Club of 1847 by right of his service in the Mexican War. He also joined the Connecticut Society of the Sons of the American Revolution in 1890. He died in Norwalk, Connecticut. He was buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Taunton. Legacy According to Herman Hattaway and Michael D. Smith: Couch is best remembered as an able division and corps commander in the Army of the Potomac. His career occasionally was marred by personal traits of impatience and temper directed at both subordinates and superiors. He also suffered from prolonged bouts of ill health, which led to his acceptance of the post of