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Sergeant John Henry Cook was detailed as a clerk at Pleasant Hill, Louisiana, when the Union soldiers came under attack by Confederate forces. "The thought of being a noncombatant was distasteful," he later wrote, and so, arming myself with a Sharps rifle, I took my place as sergeant in the rear of my company." In his impromptu role, Sergeant Cook had no supplies and only forty rounds for his rifle. In the advance that followed Sergeant Cook's commander, Lieutenant Jack Ware, took control of the skirmish line and ordered him to lead the center of the line. Acting as an officer, Sergeant Cook valiantly led the line forward, firing all forty rounds of ammunition. With his rifle empty, he raised it in his right had and, waving his hat in his left, "ran forward cheering on the boys. I felt a good deal as General Corse expressed himself in his famous dispatch to General Sherman: 'I am out of provisions, I have lost and ear and part of a cheek-bone, but I can whip all hell yet." Sergeant Cook's valiant leadership enabled his men to capture a large number of prisoners and force back the rebel line. |
Photo Contributed by John Cook, this hero's great, great grandson
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