"I had an opportunity of seeing and knowing the conduct of Colonel Starkweather, of the Twenty-eighth Brigade, Colonel Harris, of the Ninth Brigade, and of the officers and men under their command, and I can not speak too highly of their bravery and gallantry on that occasion. They did, cheerfully and with alacrity, all that brave men could do...."
"I herewith transmit the reports of Colonels Starkweather, Harris, and Pope, and also a list of casualties in my division, amounting, in all, to 1,950 killed and wounded. My division was about 7,000 strong when it went into the action. We fought the divisions of Anderson, Cheatham, and Buckner.
"I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
It will not be amiss here to give a brief outline of the early history, coming down to a recent date, of the renowned hero, Major-General A. McD. McCOOK, United States Volunteers.
He was born in Columbiana County, Ohio, April 22, 1831. At the age of sixteen he entered the Military Academy at West Point, as a cadet. He graduated in July, 1852, and was commissioned Brevet Second Lieutenant, in the 3d Regiment United States Infantry. After being assigned to duty for a few months, at Newport Barracks, Ky., he was ordered, in April, 1853, to join his regiment, then serving in the Territory of New Mexico. Here he remained nearly five years, constantly on active duty in the field, and participating in all the Indian campaigns on that wild and remote frontier. His long services and good conduct were mentioned in General Orders by Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott. In January, 1858, he was ordered from New Mexico to West Point, and assigned to duty in the Military Academy, as instructor in Tactics and the Art of War. On the breaking out of the rebellion he was relieved from duty there, and ordered, in April, 1861, to Columbus, Ohio, to muster in volunteers. Before his arrival there he was elected Colonel of the 1st Ohio Volunteers, a three-months regiment, already on its way to the seat of war in Virginia; and hastening to join the command, to which he was elected without his knowledge or solicitation, soon had an opportunity of exhibiting those admirable qualities as a field-officer for which he has since become so justly distinguished. His coolness in the unfortunate affair at Vienna, and his consummate military skill in the management of his command at Bull Run, were universally commended. At the close of that eventful conflict he marched his regiment back to Centerville in the same good order in which it had left there, an honorable exception to the wide-spread confusion and disorder that prevailed elsewhere among the National forces.