Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/656

616 with which he presented his views on public questions. As the chairman of the important committee on commerce, he performed signal service to the country for ten years in a department of work for which he was well qualified. Through his especial and intelligent efforts the interstate commerce legislation was put in progress. His senatorial career was characterized also by a service for which his long experience had qualified him, but after about four years in that exalted office he chose to retire from political life and accepted the chairmanship of the Texas railroad commission. Senator Reagan has been remarkably firm in his adherence to the first principles upon which he and his State embarked upon secession, and equally devoted and tender in his memories of those who shared with him the trials and destiny of the Confederacy. His writings on the subject are valuable contributions to the history of the causes and events of the war, and especially noteworthy is his latest address (to this date) made in June, 1897, before the convention of United Confederate Veterans when in session at Nashville, Tennessee.

General Samuel Cooper, adjutant and inspector general of the Confederate army, was born at Hackensack, New Jersey, June 12, 1798. His father, of the same name, a resident of Duchess county, New York, was an officer of the revolutionary army. General Cooper entered the United States military academy at fifteen years of age, and received his commission as brevet second-lieutenant of artillery in 1815. He obtained full rank of lieutenancy in 1817, and soon after the reorganization of the army in 1821, became first-lieutenant. In 1828-36 he was aide-de-camp to General Macomb, general in chief, and in 1836 was commissioned captain of the Fourth artillery. He was on staff duty at army headquarters as assistant adjutant-general during the Florida war; was chief of staff to Colonel William J. Worth; brevetted colonel of