his service at Shiloh, Corinth, Richmond, Chickamauga, Morgan's Raid into Kentucky, the Battle of Resaca and for Wilson's Raid on Montgomery. He was brevetted to Lt. Colonel and Colonel in the Regular Army on March 2, 1867, for gallant and meritorious services at the Battle of Resaca in Georgia and in the capture of Montgomery, Alabama. In 1866 Cooper, rejoining the army as a regular, was appointed Major of the 7th Cavalry where he served on the western frontier under Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer. He was the second in command at Fort McPherson, Nebraska, but by the time he received this position he was deeply affected by alcoholism. During an expedition against the Cheyenne and the Sioux, Cooper ran out of whiskey. This apparently caused him to experience serious withdrawal symptoms. He died from a self-inflicted gunshot "while in a fit of delirium tremens" on June 8, 1867 at a Medicine Lake Creek encampment, about 50 miles southeast of Fort McPherson, Nebraska. Custer wrote, "But for the intemperance Col. Cooper would have been a useful and accomplished officer, a brilliant and most companionable gentleman. He leaves a young wife, shortly to become a mother." His death was initially ruled suicide, but the cause of death was later changed to "died by hand of person or persons unknown, while in the line of his duty as an officer of the army" by the United States War Department in 1885, so his widow could receive his pension. Marriage and family Wickliffe Cooper was married to Sarah Steele Venable, born on August 28, 1841; she died March 19, 1888. Wickliffe and Sarah had a daughter, artist Mary Wickliffe Cooper. Wickliffe Cooper and his wife are buried together in Lexington Cemetery, Lexington, Kentucky. Notes References Further reading 1831 births 1867 deaths Military personnel from Lexington, Kentucky Union Army colonels United States Army officers American military personnel of the Indian Wars American military personnel who committed suicide Suicides by firearm in Nebraska