Robert Latimer McCook photograph

Brigadier General Robert Latimer McCook, who appears in this 4 by 6.25-inch (10.16 by 15.88 cm) carte de visite, was a member of the Fighting McCooks, an Ohio family that sent fifteen men to serve in the Civil War. Robert Latimer (1827-1862) was born in Lisbon, Ohio to Daniel and Martha Latimer McCook. Prior to the Civil War, he was a lawyer. McCook served in the 9th Ohio Volunteer Infantry (O.V.I.). He was wounded at the battle of Mill Spring, Kentucky in 1862, but continued to command his troops for eight months until he was killed by a Southern guerilla group. Daniel McCook, Sr. and his eight sons, together with his brother John McCook and his five sons fought in the Civil War. Daniel (1798-1863) and John (1806-1865) were born in Pennsylvania, and moved to Lisbon in Columbiana County, Ohio in 1826. Daniel subsequently moved to Carrollton, where he served as Carroll County's first clerk of the court of common pleas. John settled in Steubenville, where he practiced medicine. When President Lincoln made the first call for volunteers, 63-year-old Daniel Sr. answered and his sons and relatives followed. Daniel Sr., Daniel Jr., Robert Latimer, and Charles Morris McCook were killed in the war. Cartes-de-visite, photographic portraits on cardboard, were popular in the late nineteenth century. Some were used as calling cards, others were sold and traded as collectibles