Civil War Service
At the beginning of the Civil War, Cooper's loyalties were with the South. His wife's family was from Virginia, and he had a close friendship with Jefferson Davis, who had also been U.S. Secretary of War. One of his last official acts as Adjutant General of the U.S. Army was to sign an order dismissing Brig. Gen. David E. Twiggs from the army. Twiggs had surrendered his command and supplies in Texas to the Confederacy (and was shortly thereafter made a Confederate major general.) This order was dated March 1, 1861, and Cooper resigned six days later. He traveled to Montgomery, Alabama, at the time the Confederacy's capital, to join the Confederate States Army.
On reaching Montgomery, Cooper was immediately given a commission as a brigadier general on March 16, 1861. He served as both Adjutant General and Inspector General of the Confederate Army, a post he held until the end of the war. Cooper provided much needed organization and knowledge to the fledgling Confederate War Department, drawing on his years performing such duties as Adjutant General of the U.S. Army.
On May 16, 1861, Cooper was promoted to full general in the Confederate Army. He was one of five men promoted to the grade at that time, and one of only seven during the war, but with the earliest date of rank. Thus, despite his relative obscurity today, he outranked such luminaries as Albert Sidney Johnston, Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, and P.G.T. Beauregard. Cooper reported directly to Confederate President Jefferson Davis." At the war's end in 1865, Cooper surrendered and was paroled on May 3 at Charlotte, North Carolina.
Read more about this topic: Samuel Cooper (general)
Famous quotes containing the words civil war, civil, war and/or service:
“One of the greatest difficulties in civil war is, that more art is required to know what should be concealed from our friends, than what ought to be done against our enemies.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“One of the greatest difficulties in civil war is, that more art is required to know what should be concealed from our friends, than what ought to be done against our enemies.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“... the next war will be a war in which people not armies will suffer, and our boasted, hard-earned civilization will do us no good. Cannot the women rise to this great opportunity and work now, and not have the double horror, if another war comes, of losing their loved ones, and knowing that they lifted no finger when they might have worked hard?”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
“O good old man, how well in thee appears
The constant service of the antique world,
When service sweat for duty, not for meed!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)