histcoll5

HISTORICAL COLLECTION OF OHIO By Henry Howe, LL.D., 1898

THE DANIEL MCCOOK BRANCH CONTINUED

4. Robert Latimer McCook, born at New Lisbon, Ohio, December
28, 1827. He studied law in the office of Stanton & McCook, at
Steubenville, then removed to Cincinnati, and in connection with Judge J.B. Stallo
secured a large practice. When the news reached Cincinnati that Fort
Sumter had been fired upon he organized and was commissioned colonel of the
Ninth Ohio regiment, among the Germans, enlisting a thousand men in less
than two days. He was ordered to West Virginia, put in command of a brigade,
and made the decisive campaign there under McClellan. His brigade was then
transferred to the Army of the Ohio, and took a most active part in
the battle of Mills Spring, in Kentucky, where he was severely wounded.
The rebel forces were driven from their lines by a bayonet charge of Gen.
McCook's brigade and so closely pursued that their organization as an
army was completely destroyed. Gen. McCook rejoined his brigade before his
wound had healed, and continued to command it when he was unable to mount a
horse. His remarkable soldierly qualities procured him the rank of
major-general and command of a division.
He met his death August 6, 1862, while on the march near
Salem, Alabama. He had been completely prostrated by his open wound and a
severe attack of dysentery, and was lying in an ambulance which was driven
along in the interval between two regiments of his division. A small band of
mounted local guerrillas, commanded by Frank Gurley, dashed out of
ambush, surrounded the ambulance, and discovered that it contained an officer of
rank, who was lying on the bed undressed and unable to rise. They
asked who it was, and seeing that the Federal troops were approaching, shot him
as he lay and made their escape, as the nature of the country and their
thorough familiarity with it easily enabled them to do. This brutal
assassination of Gen. McCook aroused intense feeling throughout the country. The
murdered commander was buried at Spring Grove cemetery, and his devoted
soldiers and friends, at the close of the war, erected a monument to his memory in
Cincinnati.
5. Alexander McDowell McCook was born on a farm near New
Lisbon, Columbiana county, Ohio, April 22, 1831. He entered the United States
Military Academy, at West Point, and graduated in the class of 1852.
At the opening of the war he was promptly made colonel of the First Ohio
regiment which he led among the very earliest troops to the relief of the
capital, and commanded at Bull Run, or Manassas. He became a brigadier-general in
September, 1861, and commanded a division under Gen. Buell in the
Army of the Ohio. he was made a major-general for distinguished services at
the battle of Shiloh, and was placed in command of the Army of the
Cumberland, with which he served during the campaigns of Perryville, Stone River,
Tullahoma, Chattanooga, and Chickamauga. Gen. McCook subsequently
commanded one of the trans-Mississippi departments. He is now colonel of the
Sixth regular infantry.
6. Daniel McCook, Jr., was born at Carrollton, Ohio, July 2,
1834.
He was rather delicate and over studious, and with a view to
improving his
health entered Alabama University at Florence, from which he
graduated with
honor. He returned to Ohio with health greatly improved, and entered
the
law office at Stanton & McCook at Steubenville.
After admission to the bar he removed to Leavenworth, Kansas,
where
he formed a partnership with William T. Sherman and Thomas Ewing.
When the
war opened that office closed and each of the partners soon became
general
officers.
Daniel McCook, Jr., was captain of a local company, the
Shields
Guards, with which he volunteered, and, as a part of the First Kansas
Regiment, served under General Lyon at Wilson's creek. he then served
as
chief of staff of the First Division of the Army, of the Ohio in the
Shiloh
campaign, and became colonel of the Fifty-second Ohio Infantry in the
summer of 1862. He was assigned to the command of a brigade in General
Sheridan's division and as such continued to serve with the Army of
the
Cumberland.
He was selected by his old law partner, General Sherman, to
lead
the assault on Kennesaw mountain. After all the arrangements for the
assault had been made, the brigade was formed in regiment front, and
four
deep. Just before the assault Colonel McCook recited to his men in a
perfectly calm manner the stanzas from Macaulay's Horatius, in which
occur
these lines;
Then out spake brave Horatius,
The captain of the gate;
"To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods.
"And for the tender mother
Who dandled him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses
His baby at her breast?"

Then he gave the word of command and dashed forward. He had
reached
the top of the enemy's works, and was encouraging his men to follow
when he
was riddled with minnie balls, and fell back wounded unto death. For
his
courage and gallantry in this assault he was promoted to the full
rank of
brigadier-general, an honor he did not live to enjoy, as he survived
but a
few days. He died July 21, 1864, and was buried at Spring Grove
cemetery,
Cincinnati.
7. Edwin Stanton McCook, was born at Carrollton, Ohio, March
26,
1837. He was educated at the United States Naval Academy at
Annapolis, but
preferring the other arm of service, when the civil war began he
recruited
a company and joined the Thirty-first Illinois Regiment Infantry, of
which
his friend, John A. Logan was colonel. He served with this regiment
at the
battles of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, where he was severely
wounded. In
his promotion he succeeded General Logan, and followed him in the
command
of regiment, brigade and division throughout the Vicksburg and other
campaigns under Grant, in the Chattanooga and Atlanta campaigns and
in the
march to the sea under Sherman.
He was promoted to the rank of full brigadier and brevet
major-general for his services in these campaigns. He was three times
severely wounded, but survived the war. While acting governor of
Dakota and
presiding over a public meeting, September 11, 1873, he was shot and
killed
by a man in the audience who was not in sympathy with the objects of
the
meeting, and was buried at Spring Grove cemetery, Cincinnati.
8. Charles Morris McCook was born at Carrollton, Ohio,
November 13,
1843. He was a member of the freshman class at Kenyon College when
the war
began, and although less than eighteen years of age volunteered as a
private soldier in the Second Ohio Infantry for three months' service.
Secretary Stanton offered him a lieutenant's commission in the regular
army, but he referred to serve as a volunteer.
At the battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861 he served with his
regiment, which was covering the retreat of the shattered army. As he
passed a field hospital he saw his father, who had volunteered as a
nurse,
at work among the wounded, and stopped to assist him, the regiment
passing
on. As he started to rejoin his company young McCook was surrounded
by an
officer and several troopers of the famous Black Horse cavalry who
demanded
his surrender. His musket was loaded, and he quickly disabled the
officer,
and, as he was highly trained in the bayonet exercise, kept the other
horsemen at bay. His father seeing the odds against the lad called to
him
to surrender, to which he replied, "Father, I will never surrender to
a
rebel," and a moment after was shot down by one of the cavalrymen.
His aged
father removed his remains from the field, and they were afterwards
buried
at Spring Grove cemetery, Cincinnati.
9. John J. McCook was born at Carrollton, Ohio, May 25, 1845.
He
was a student at Kenyon College when the war began, and, after
completing
his freshman year, enlisted in the Sixth Ohio Cavalry. He was
promoted to a
first lieutenancy on September 12, 1862, and was assigned to duty on
the
staff of General Thomas L. Crittenden, commanding a corps of the Army
of
the Ohio, which subsequently became the Twenty-first Corps of the
Army of
the Cumberland.
He served in the campaigns of Perryville, Stone River,
Tullahoma,
Chattanooga and Chickamauga with the Western armies and in General
Grant's
campaign with the Army of the Potomac, from the battle of the
Wilderness to
the crossing of James river. He was commissioned a captain and aide-
de-camp
of the United States Volunteers in September, 1863, and was brevetted
major
of volunteers for gallant and meritorious services in action at Shady
Grove, Virginia, where he was severely and dangerously wounded. He was
afterward made lieutenant-colonel and colonel for gallant and
meritorious
services. Colonel McCook still survives, and is a lawyer engaged in
active
practice in New York city.

* Continued in part 6 with THE JOHN MCCOOK BRANCH*