Ancestor meets 50th Illinois at Fort Donelson

The Union victory at the
Battle of Fort Donelson after five days of fighting, Feb. 11-16, 1862, made
Ulysses S. Grant a major general, cleared a path for invasion into the South
and brought together young men of the 50th Illinois Infantry, formed in Quincy,
with my great-grandfather, Isaac Cook of Kentucky.

Cook, 20, had enrolled in the Union Army on Oct. 15, 1861, at
Henderson, Ky. He and his two brothers — William, 21, and James, 19 — joined
Company A, 25th Regiment, Kentucky Volunteer Infantry. Isaac was wounded at
Fort Donelson. William and James were killed there.

Fort Donelson was the North’s first major victory of the
Civil War. The capture of the fort on the Cumberland River opened the way into
the very heart of the Confederacy. Gen. Grant, after leading his green recruits
through Quincy in April 1861 and on to battle in Missouri later that year,
moved south, crossing the Ohio River at Paducah. Grant moved up the Tennessee
River to attack Fort Henry, which surrendered to his forces, including the 50th
Illinois, on Feb. 6, 1862. He then moved 12 miles overland to attack Fort
Donelson. Grant’s strategy was to use U.S. Navy ironclad gunboats to pound the
forts into submission. That worked well at Fort Henry, but the gunboats were
forced to withdraw after sustaining heavy damage from Fort Donelson’s river
batteries, including some guns on the crown of a 100-foot bluff.

Grant’s forces surrounded the Confederates at Donelson, but
on the morning of Feb. 15, Confederate Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, Fort Donelson’s
second in command, attempted to break out, launching a dawn assault on the
unprotected right flank of the Union line.

Isaac Cook and his brothers were believed among the Union
fighters there. After two hours of heavy fighting, Pillow’s men, including Lt.
Col. Nathan Bedford Forrest, were able to push the Union troops out of the way
to open an escape route. But the Confederates, unexpectedly, were ordered to
return to their entrenchments, a result of confusion and indecision among the
Confederate commanders. Grant ordered a counter-attack, and the Union forces
were poised to seize Fort Donelson and its river batteries on Feb. 16.

The men of the Adams county formed 50th Illinois, who had
described the sound of rebel bullets hitting their bayonets the night before
“like so much hail,” waited in silence, breathing deeply, early that Sunday
morning for the order to attack the fort from their position in a ravine
to the west. It did not come. Instead, at 10 a.m., the rebels struck their
colors and surrendered.

Confederate Generals John B. Floyd and Pillow had turned over
command to Confederate Gen. Simon B. Buckner, who agreed to remain behind and
surrender the army. That was something Confederate Col. Nathan Bedford Forrest
would refuse to do. He angrily stormed out with his 700 men.

The Confederates had been evacuating Bowling Green, Ky., at
the time and wanted Fort Donelson to protect the flank of their retreat through
Nashville. Now, with the capture of Fort Donelson, that strategy died. Grant’s
success resulted in his rank of major general, and the terms he demanded of his
West Point classmate, friend and now Confederate Gen. Buckner earned him the
nickname “Unconditional Surrender” Grant.

After being wounded at Fort Donelson, Isaac
Cook was sent to a hospital in Henderson, Ky. As a result he
missed the Battle of Shiloh, April 6-7. That was a good
battle to miss. When it joined the battle at mid-morning on that
first day, the 50th suffered 79 casualties within 15 minutes.
The unit’s commanding officer, Col.
Moses Bane of Payson, lost his right arm to a rebel’s musket ball in the first
minute.

Because it suffered so many casualties, the 25th Kentucky
Infantry ceased to exist on April 13, 1862, and its members were consolidated
with the 17th Kentucky Infantry. My brother, John Cook, is very good at
genealogy and requested the National Archives to search for any of my
great-grandfather’s records.

That’s when he found out about the court-martial.

After Isaac Cook left the hospital, he was sent home to Hopkinsville,
Ky., to recover. He failed to rejoin his unit. As a Marine Corps lawyer, a
judge advocate, assigned to the First Marine Air Wing, in DaNang, Vietnam, it
was interesting for me to read the record of my great grandfather’s
court-martial. The proceedings haven’t changed much in a hundred years. The
language is still the same. Isaac Cook faced:

Charge Desertion
Specification — in that he the Said Isaac A. Cook a private of Co. G 17 Regt Ky
Vol Inft being duly enlisted in the Service of the United States did Desert his
Co and Regt at Hopkinsville Ky on or about the 3rd Day of December 1862 and
Remained absent therefrom until the 24th day of September 1863 when He was
Brought to his Regt under guard then encamped near Chattanooga Tenn.

A general court-martial was conducted Oct. 22, 1863, and
Cook was sentenced to forfeit his pay of $13 per month for 14 months and placed
on hard labor for 30 days. The sentence was signed by the judge advocate. The lengthy
written record of the court-martial, taken in a war zone, is impressive — 11
handwritten legal-size pages.

Cook returned to the 17th Kentucky Infantry Regiment, which
served under Sherman on the March from Chattanooga to Atlanta. Cook was wounded
once again, either at Allatoona or Resaca, on May 23, 1864. This time he
returned to duty pretty quickly.

The 17th Regiment mustered out of the service at Louisville,
Ky., on Jan. 23, 1865, and Cook received an honorable discharge. As a result of
his conviction, he received one month’s pay for most of his service during the
Civil War. He did receive a pension, however, as did his wife after he died.

The names “William” and “James” are common in our family; not so “Isaac.” My brother
tells me Isaac was born in McMinn County, Tenn., and there was a famous abolitionist
near there, Isaac Anderson, a Presbyterian Minister and the founder of
Maryville College. And Isaac Cook’s full name, indeed, was “Isaac Anderson
Cook.” My brother also found out that Isaac had an aunt, Lucinda Cook, who
married a man with the last name “Daniel.” They had a son named Jack. Jack
founded a whiskey distillery. That’s another story.

We sometimes complain about things, but our lives for the
most part have been so much better than the lives of those who went before us.
The Civil War was a terrible time. Sherman said “War is Hell,” and my
great-grandfather knew it.

Robert Cook, a longtime resident of Quincy, is a judge on
the Illinois Appellate Court in Springfield. He is a member of the Board of the
Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County.

Sources:

Costigan, David.
“Once Upon a Time: Grant Comes to Quincy and Northeast Missouri,”
Quincy Herald-Whig, September 25, 2011. At

Hubert, Charles F.
History of the Fiftieth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry in the War of the
Union. Kansas City: Western Veteran Publishing Company, 1894.