John James McCook (professor)
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John James McCook, Jr. (born February 4, 1843) was a chaplain in the Union Army during the American Civil War, and postbellum lawyer, professor, and theologian. He was a member of the Fighting McCooks, a family of Ohioans who contributed 15 members to the Union army.
McCook was born in New Lisbon, Ohio. He graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut in 1863. He was a theological student at Kenyon College when he enlisted in the Army. He served in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War as a chaplain with the rank of lieutenant in the 1st [West] Virginia Infantry, a regiment recruited almost exclusively from Ohio. He was badly wounded at the Battle of Shady Grove in Virginia, and complications from the wound (gangrene, blood poisoning, and multiple surgeries) finally disabled McCook. He resigned from the Army in the autumn of 1862 and returned to Kenyon to resume his studies.
After graduating in 1866, he studied law and established a prosperous practice in New York City. He served as a trustee of Kenyon College and a director of Princeton Theological Seminary. As a leading layman of the Presbyterian Church, McCook served at the heresy trial of theologian Charles Augustus Briggs in 1892. McCook was offered, but declined, a national appointment in the Cabinet of President William McKinley. He held pastorates in Detroit, Michigan, and East Hartford, Connecticut.
In 1870, he wrote Pat and the Council.
[edit] References
- Whalen, Charles and Barbara, The Fighting McCooks: America's Famous Fighting Family, Westmoreland Press, 2006.
- Ohio Historical Society
