Cook, Gustave (1835-1897) to Eliza Cook
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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC02570.27 Author/Creator: Cook, Gustave (1835-1897) Place Written: Hayneville, Alabama Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 13 August 1862 Pagination: 4 p. Order a Copy
Cook went to visit family and "I found the whole country in mourning for relations and friends killed at the battles of Seven Pines and Richmond." Includes news about Girard and adds that Walter has been very sick but is improving slowly. He includes a story about Cornelius Sadler who was wounded at Shiloh, began recovering, and fell ill again with a pain in his side. "Dr. Burney of Montgomery examined the locality of the wound and opened a place from which he took a fragment of a shell weighing three and a half ounces. It was under the ribs." He includes new directions for sending him mail through a private citizen who will then send the mail directly to Gustave at his camp.
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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