Cook, Gustave (1835-1897) to Eliza Cook
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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC02570.26 Author/Creator: Cook, Gustave (1835-1897) Place Written: [near] Natchez, Miss. Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 30 July 1862 Pagination: 5 p. + addr. Order a Copy
Includes camp news. Cook promises to write friends and family once he has the chance. Wants Eliza to visit a good dentist "to plug any decayed teeth you have and file apart the two front ones…Pretty teeth you know are a great attraction and by having yours worked on a little they will be beautiful. Do it for my sake now darling and I expect to hear soon that you have done as I desire. Be sure to have the two front ones separated for they are decaying and need to be plugged badly. I shall send you plenty of money…" Is concerned about his two brothers. He writes, "I have not heard a word from home yet and I am very uneasy as both Walter and Girard must have been in the battle. I must go by pa's and see them all as I pass very near them." Discusses his wound. He writes that there is a knot on his bone and fears his leg won't be the same, though "…it will make me a little more dignified in my gait." Reports he ran into a family friend and wonders if the local gossip has not yet spread the rumor that they met "for certain purposes." Describes the concoction that passes as a "substantial substitute for dinner in these hard times…Don't you feel sorry for me? Please say yes. I feel sort of [illegible] these days just after my meals which I am unable to account for though some one very vulgarly suggested the other day that 'it was perhaps what I ate.' Now would you believe? No! No!! No!!! I know you won't. Why you know I never eat anything."
Born in Alabama on July 3, 1835, Cook moved to Texas alone at the age of 15 and studied law independently. Cook enlisted as a private in 8th Texas Cavalry, "Terry's Texas Rangers," in 1861 and was promoted to colonel by July 1863. After the war he became a circuit court judge for Galveston, served in the Texas state legislature and led an unsuccessful campaign for governor in 1890. He died in 1897 of complications from a wound suffered during his military service.
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