A Virginian in Utah Chooses the Union: Col. Philip St. George Cooke in 1861

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 42, 1974, No. 4

Philip St. George Cooke: A Virginian in Utah Chooses the Union: Col. Philip St.George Cooke in 1861

BY RICHARD W. ETULAIN

MANY HISTORIANS HAVE discussed the dilemmas the Civil War forced upon families who were divided in their loyalties between the North and South. Some writers argue that the fratricidal nature of the war was its worst horror. We do know that President Abraham Lincoln agonized over the problem; part of his family took up the Southern cause. And equally revealing was Gen. Robert E. Lee's tortured indecision before finally deciding to follow Virginia into the Confederacy. Yet we have not generally been given an inside view of these family struggles — that is, we have not seen how one side expressed its feelings to members of the family who went with the opposition. The document printed below provides the reader with one such view.

The author of the letter, Col. Philip St. George Cooke, was a Virginian who spent all his adult life in the military until his retirement in 1873. Stationed from the late 1820s until 1861 in several forts throughout the West, Cooke was absent from his home state when sectional fires began to smolder and then burst into flames. His absence from Virginia for nearly thirty-five years prior to the Civil War helps to explain his point of view. He was also strongly devoted to the army because, as he states, it had provided him with an occupation and a means of support for his family. Though he remembered his origins and cherished his family ties in Virginia, he was even more strongly attached to the United States Army and to the cause of the Union.

The recipient of the letter, John Esten Cooke, who was the nephew of Colonel Cooke, lived his entire life in Virginia. By the outbreak of the Civil War he had gained a national reputation as a writer, and no one questioned his allegiance to his home state. He agreed with Virginia's slow, deliberate steps toward secession, and evidence in the Cooke letter indicates that he tried to convince his uncle to resign and to join the Confederate cause. The older man's answer, though beginning calmly enough, soon becomes a stinging reply. Shortly after writing the letter, Colonel Cooke joined the Northern cause and fought for the North during the Civil War.

The letter of Philip St. George Cooke reflects the thoughts of one well-known Virginian, stationed in the West, who decided to remain with the Union. It is from a collection of materials transferred from the Office of the Adjutant General to the National Archives on June 16, 1959. These documents had not been formally accessioned as of June 1974. The transcription follows the spelling of Colonel Cooke, but the punctuation has been altered slightly to achieve uniformity; dashes have been omitted where commas were already present, periods have been added at the end of sentences, and capital letters have been used to begin the sentence. Superscriptions have been brought down to the line and varied forms of "and" regularized. Otherwise the letter remains as Cooke wrote it.

Fort Crittenden Utah May 8th '61

My Dear John,

Only by our last mail did I receive yours of Mar. 31, and Apl. 4 — and enclosure. As you urge, I write by the first mail east. I must first thank you most heartily for your warm interest, and unlimited offers of service; and then, alas! with much pain, write — as you say — "plainly frankly and in a straight-forward way."

Young, unmarried, having spent your life in Va. and amid the influences of a city hot-bed of state-rights prejudices, of revolutionists, such is your stand point.

Consider mine: Thirty eight years ago the American Nation took me, an orphan, to educate to its service, giving me a profession; and has supported me, and honored me, ever since; long before your birth, I was severed from Virginia — and from a part, still I believe loyal to the Union; and for that long course of time, bonded with honorable friends from every corner of my country, have laboured, have fought and triumphed all over our Northern Continent under a National flag, emblem of honor and protection, and which I have sworn to honor and defend in return. I have been a Western man, married and raised children by the far, rude but loved Missouri! and finally, in the last passionate struggle, shuddering at the arrant palpable madness, to which God, with inscrutable purposes, has delivered half a nation, amid stern mountains, and perennial snows, 2000 miles off, I have calmly surveyed the whole field.

Then realize — my dear Nephew — that with pain in my heart, I shrink from the miseries and horrors of a fratricidal war, to be endured by friends — Kin — Women and orphaned children; that I cannot have the poor and bitter satisfaction of being sustained, and excited by feelings and passions, enlisted on either side.

I cannot realize that Va. will sever herself on the 23d. — that she will stultify her old principles, the teachings, and life labours of her great dead; her herostatesmen whose legacy of renown is her greatest claim upon the respect of the world; I cannot realize that her sons will make her the tool of cold, selfish conspirators and traitors — the oligarchy of S. Ca. — and my National pride is refreshed when denociated from such communities as Texas, assassins and fugitives! from Florida, debased mendicated mongrels, wreakers! with less white population than many a county, it acquired just strength enough from the purchase, support, care, the magnanimity of a great nation, to turn and insult her!

It is perhaps not the least of the miseries of this mad struggle — that it should in any way — or degree, discover the ties and affections of blood, and friendship.

If I resign, I expect to take myself and family to an honorable poverty and seclusion; and where? — What folly, if, owning no slaves, I should choose for neighbors, the owners of slaves!

It would be pleasure and pride, in a just cause, to fight side to side with Virginians; but should the fates now throw me in their midst, my sword point would be by feelings turned against the "Cotton States", rather than the North!

It is singular, Col. Loring lately asserted that Col. Davis had recommended him, and other officers, not to resign, unless when their arms were turned against their own States!

We have had reason to look for orders to march eastward, but now, appearances, are contradictory: fate, now the second time, placing me far from the great scenes of action, I grow callous, and disposed to make the best of it. Remember me with great affection to your sisters and theirs.

Very truly yours P. S. Geo. Cooke

Jno Esten Cooke, Esq — Richd. P. S. You may find my crisis politics in Senator Bayard's speech, Mar. 20th. — ex. session

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