Philip St. George Cooke

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For the Confederate general with a similar name, see Philip St. George Cocke.

Philip St. George Cooke
Union Army
Years of service1827–1873
Rank Brigadier General
Brevet Major General
CommandsMormon Battalion
2nd Cavalry Regiment
Department of the Platte
Battles / warsBlack Hawk War

Mexican–American War

Bleeding Kansas
American Civil War

Apache Wars
Signature

Philip St. George Cooke (June 13, 1809 – March 20, 1895) was a career United States Army cavalry officer who served as a Union General in the American Civil War. He is noted for his authorship of an Army cavalry manual, and is sometimes called the "Father of the U.S. Cavalry."

Early life

Cooke was born in

first lieutenant in the newly formed 1st U.S. Dragoons
.

Cooke went on numerous trips of exploration into the Far West with the Dragoons. As Captain in command of 200 Dragoons, he disarmed and arrested Colonel

Second Texas Santa Fe Expedition.[2]

During the

California Gold Rush. He received a brevet promotion to lieutenant colonel for his service in California. In command of 2nd U.S. Dragoons, he defeated the Jicarilla Apache in Ojo Caliente, New Mexico, in 1854, was in the 1855 Battle of Ash Hollow against the Sioux, and was sent to keep the peace in Bleeding Kansas in 1856–1857. Acquainted with Brigham Young, Cooke took part in the Utah expedition of 1857–1858, after which he was promoted to colonel and assigned command of the 2nd U.S. Dragoons. He was an observer for the U.S. Army in the Crimean War
and commanded the Department of Utah from 1860 until 1861.

Union General Philip St. George Cooke
John Rogers Cooke
J. E. B. Stuart

The issue of secession deeply divided Cooke's family. Cooke himself remained loyal to the Union, but his son, John Rogers Cooke, became an infantry brigade commander in the Army of Northern Virginia. J. E. B. Stuart, the famous Confederate cavalry commander, was Cooke's son-in-law. Cooke and Stuart never spoke again, Stuart saying, "He will regret it only once, and that will be continually."[3]

Civil War

At the start of the

Henry W. Halleck and George B. McClellan, was that the cavalry should be deployed in double ranks (a regiment would deploy in two lines of five companies each), which would increase the shock effect of the charge by providing an immediate follow-up attack. Cooke's manual called for a single-rank formation in which a battalion of four companies would form a single line and two squadrons
of two companies each would cover the flanks. A third battalion would be placed in reserve a few hundred yards to the rear. Cook believed that the double-rank offensive promoted disorder of the horses in the ranks and would be difficult to control.

Cooke was appointed

Yorktown, Cooke was sent along with Major General George Stoneman in pursuit and his cavalry was roughed up in an assault ordered by Stoneman against Fort Magruder. He saw subsequent action at the battles of Williamsburg, Gaines' Mill, and White Oak Swamp. Cooke ordered an ill-fated charge of the 5th U.S. Cavalry at Gaines' Mill during the Seven Days Battles
, sacrificing nearly an entire regiment of regulars.

After the Peninsula, Cooke left active field service. One proximate reason was the embarrassment he suffered when his son-in-law, J. E. B. Stuart, humiliated the Union cavalry by completely circling the Army of the Potomac in his celebrated raid. Cooke served on boards of

Adjutant General's office. On July 17, 1866, President Andrew Johnson nominated Cooke for appointment to the brevet grade of major general in the regular army, to rank from March 13, 1865, and the U.S. Senate confirmed the appointment on July 23, 1866.[5]

Postbellum life

Cooke commanded the

Department of the Cumberland from 1869 to 1870, and the Department of the Lakes. He retired from the Army with almost 50 years service on October 29, 1873, as a brigadier general.[6]

Cooke was a member of the Michigan Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.

Cooke is the author of a variety of memoirs of his service: Notes of a Military Reconnaissance, from Fort Leavenworth, in Missouri, to San Diego, in California (1848), Scenes and Adventures in the Army: or, Romance of Military Life (1857), Cavalry Tactics (1862), Handy Book for United States Cavalry (1863), and The Conquest of New Mexico and California (1878).

Cooke died in

Vandenberg Air Force Base
.

Legacy

Camp Cooke (1866–1870), the first military post in the Montana Territory, was named in honor of Phillip St. George Cooke while he was the commander of the Department of the Platte which included the Montana Territory.

Vandenberg Air Force Base in 1958. Camp Cooke and Cooke Air Force Base in California were named in honor of Philip St. George Cooke.[7]

See also

Notes

  1. ISBN 0-8047-3641-3
    .
  2. ^ Gregg, Josiah. Commerce of the Prairies: or, The Journal of a Santa Fé trader, 1831–1839. A. H. Clark, 1905. pp. 227–233.
  3. ^ Thomas, p. 95.
  4. ^ a b Eicher, 2001, p. 716.
  5. ^ Eicher, 2001, p. 706.
  6. ^ Eicher, 2001, p. 184.
  7. ^ "Camp Cooke" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 21, 2006. Retrieved March 5, 2012.

References
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