At long last we have finally received photos of Lt. John D. Cooper of Co. G and his wife, Elizabeth Parkman Cooper along with a sword owned by Cooper. John Cooper is one of the scribes of the 7th Miss. His diary and poetry cover the Atlanta Campaign. He was wounded in the battle of Jonesboro on August 31st 1864, was sent to Macon to recover, but unfortunately gangrene took his life there. His grgr grandson, Chuck McMains passed along these photos so we will be posting them on the website of the "Immortal Seventh Mississippi" soon.

Interestingly the sword may be a captured union sword rather than Cooper's personal sword. We know that Cooper captured a union staff officer on a night time scout behind enemy lines near New Hope Church in may of 1864 and kept his pistol and sword as souvenirs. The officer was in the process of posting the camp guards when Cooper and his patrol captured them.

Chuck said that there was at one time a pistol owned by a family member, but no one knows where it is. I plan to post a photo of the sword on the weapons message board to see if we can identify it. The owner has attempted for years to identify the manufacturer with no luck.