The Fighting McCooks

A photo of the historical marker in Ohio about the Fighting
McCooks with the "Tribe of Dan" listed below.

As always, when learning about families in the Civil War it is common to hear about families divided that fought on opposite sides of the war, especially around the border states. It is not unheard of, but uncommon for many families to be mentioned because they all fought on the same side. For this assignment, I found an article that explores an entire family who fought together in the Civil War. The "Fighting McCooks" were a family of two brothers with fourteen total sons who fought and achieved high ranks in the Union Army during the Civil War. The oldest brother was Daniel McCook and he had nine total sons, while John McCook had five sons. They were all from Carrollton and Steubenville, Ohio. While reading the article, the author James H. Rodabaugh, mentioned that Daniel and his 8 surviving sons (one died of illness in 1842 on the frigate Delaware) and John and his 5 sons all joined the Union, which I found peculiar because thats a total of 15 people, not 14 as Rodabaugh mentioned in his article: "All fourteen participated actively in the war, thirteen of them as officers." The author then goes on to describe every member of the family and their accomplishments within the war broken down into the "Tribe of Dan" and the "Tribe of John." 

What I found particularly interesting about this family was not only did the whole family join the Union Army, but they were all Democrats and each one of them became some form of officer, except one. Out of the entire family there were three major generals, three brigadier generals, two colonels, two majors, two lieutenants, and one private. The article mentions that some of the sons had become officers "by brevet for meritorious services," which means that they were only given the positions temporarily and did not receive the pay of that rank. Despite their temporary ranks each member is remembered and commemorated for those ranks and their accomplishments after the war. Since the article only gave me a brief synopsis of each member, I did more research about the family and discovered that there were actually three brothers and fifteen sons total who fought in the Civil War. The third brother George McCook and his son George Latimer were neglected within the article and not much information is known about them. I am curious why these two in particular are not mentioned with the rest of the fighting McCooks and wonder what their stories are and what may of happened to them. If they are part of the family, then why are they not included - is it because they are insignificant compared to the rest or because they met their ends early on in the war and therefore not worth mentioning? I would be interested to explore their individual histories. In conclusion, the entire family is prominent within Ohio and Daniel McCook's house is now currently a museum in Carroll County, Ohio. I find stories like these compelling - it is refreshing to hear about a family who was not split because of the war but rather brought closer together, except for the ones who died.



Carroll County, Ohio Historical Society. "McCook House on the Square in Carrollton" Carroll County Historical Society. http://www.carrollcountyohio.com/history/index.htm [accessed April 12, 2013]

Rodabough, James H. "The Fighting McCooks" Civil War History 3, no. 3 (September 1957) http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/civil_war_history/toc/cwh.3.3.html [accessed April 12, 2013]