CONFEDERATE BIOGRAPHY: HENRY CLAY COOKE - Smith County, TX

***************************************************************** 
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm

Submitted by Mary Love Berryman - marylove@tyler.net
28 August 2001
*****************************************************************
TEXANS WHO WORE THE GRAY by Sid S. Johnson
 
HENRY CLAY COOKE.

Born June 10, 1845, at Eutaw. Greene county, Alaba­bama.  His parents 
were Will­iam Allen Cooke and Eliza­beth Cooke.  They were Vir­ginians 
but moved to Alabama about 1840.  H. C. Cooke vol­unteered and was 
enlisted in company K, 11th Alabama in­fantry, in May, 1861.  His 
regiment formed a part of Wilcox's  Alabama  Brigade. He was not quite 
sixteen when he enlisted in the Confederate service and was the smallest
soldier in his regiment.  He participated in the battles of Seven Pines, 
the siege and capture of Harper's Ferry, An­tietam or Sharpsburg, and 
Fredricksburg.  A spell of fever prevented him from participating in 
the seven days fighting around Richmond.  At the battle of Sharpsburg 
the color bearer of his regiment was shot down.  The Colonel of the 
regiment, Saunders, asked for some one to volunteer to take the colors.  
He offered to carry them, and did so 'till a shell shattered his right 
hand on the 13th day of September, 1862, at Frederickburg.  After two 
months in the 3rd Alabama Hospital, in Richmond, he was furloughed and 
returned to Marion, Alabama, where his parents then lived.  He had his 
furlough extended from time to time and attended a country school, as 
his education up to that date was limited.  In 1864 he returned to 
Richmond and was honorably discharged.

After the war he attended Howard College, at Marion, Alabama, teaching 
school in vacation to defray his expenses. He graduated in 1868 and 
continued to teach for a couple of years, when he took editorial charge 
of the "Marion Com­monwealth," Marion, Alabama, which he edited for two 
years during the terrors of reconstruction.  In the fall of 1874 came 
to Texas, locating temporarily at Bastrop, where he taught in the 
Centenary College.  In 1876 he moved to Kimball, Bosque county, where 
he taught successfully for five years.  On April 24, 1877, he married 
Miss Fannie I. Milner, a daughter of Dr. W. A. Mimer, a prominent 
physi­cian and planter of Freestone county, Texas.  In 1886 the subject
 of this sketch was elected county clerk of Bosque county, in which 
capacity he served for three consecutive terms, declining to ask for 
a fourth term.  He was after­wards elected County Judge of Bosque 
county, and served one term.  In 1900 he moved to Tyler, Smith county,
 Texas, and bought the Daily Democrat-Reporter, the oldest paper in 
East Texas.  He edited the Democrat-Reporter for five years, finally 
selling the plant and removing to Dallas, where he accepted a position 
as Commercial Editor of the Dallas Daily Times-Herald.