COOPER, (Capt) James Carlile, d. 11 Nov 1897, aged 70 years, 11 months and 24 days. Capt. James Carlisle Cooper (C.S.A.) was born in Maury Co., Tenn. He was a Private in Capt. A.G. Cooper's Co. "C", 1st Tenn. mounted Infantry of the Mexican War, June 6,1846 to May 29, 1847; Captain of Company "E" 48th (Nixon's) Tennessee Infantry, Nov 27, 1861.Was in battles of Perryville, Chickamauga, Richmond, and cited for gallantry at Chickamauga. Wounded on June 27, 1864. Son of Col. Robert Melville Cooper and Catherine Cooper who are buried at McClain Cemetery in Lewis Co., Tn. After the Mexican War, he became a 49er and joined his cousins, John Cooper (son of Jonathan) and Alexander Patton (son of Elizabeth); and his cousin's husband, Lewis S. Akin, and five other young me and went to California to seek fame and fortune. About four years after he returned to Mt. Pleasant, he married Caroline Kinzer, who was to become known as "Mrs. Capt Cooper" or "Aunt Callie". The gold fever had never left James C. Cooper and he wanted to see New Mexico again, so he left in the early fall of 1897 to join his nephew and stake a claim of his own. He was still healthy at sixty-one and felt he could withstand the trip. He became ill and died at a mining camp called Salinas Peak near Tularosa on Nov 11, 1897. He was buried there, but in 1906, his children decided to have his body returned from New Mexico to Mt. Pleasant and inter it beside his wife in Hunter's Cemetery. He was the beloved father of John Thomas Cooper, Albert Clark Cooper, James H. Cooper, William Duncan Cooper, George Lee Cooper, Robert "Bob" Cooper, Annie Byrd Cooper Burton, Callie Dora Cooper Chandler. Burial: Hunter Cemetery Mount Pleasant (Maury County) Maury County Tennessee, USA.
Information and photo by Mary Bob McClain Richardson, Visited there 4/2/2005.
