Due to the wartime requirement for officers in the rapidly expanding fleet, Cooper – ranked fifth in his graduating class – was detached early from the Naval Academy on 1 October 1863 and assigned to the steamsloop-of-warUSS Richmond in the West Gulf Blockading Squadron in the Gulf of Mexico for the rest of the Civil War.
On 31 May 1871, Cooper detached from the expedition and reported for duty at the New York Navy Yard in Brooklyn, New York, where he performed duty as equipment officer. He transferred to the screw sloop-of-war USS Congress on 20 September 1871. Cooper next returned to duty on the staff of the Naval Academy, assigned there on 10 July 1872. On 19 July 1875, he was ordered to the Naval Torpedo Station in Newport, Rhode Island, for torpedo instruction, then was transferred on 17 August 1875 to the Naval Experimental Battery at Annapolis, Maryland. An assignment as assistant hydrographic inspector in the United States Coast Survey office followed, beginning on 28 June 1878.[1][2][3]
Cooper detached from the Coast Survey on 7 November 1878 to take up special duty in the Bureau of Navigation and was promoted to commander on 1 November 1879. He left the bureau on 7 March 1881 to become commanding officer of the screwgunboatUSS Alliance while Alliance was under repair. He returned to the Bureau of Navigation on 1 October 1881 for a brief period of special duty before taking command of the screw sloop-of-war USS Swatara in the Asiatic Squadron on 17 October 1881. He left Swatara on 20 May 1884 and had duty at the Norfolk Navy Yard in Portsmouth, Virginia, from 1 April 1886 until 1888. While there, he was appointed on 18 February 1887 as senior member of a board to survey all stores and materials at the navy yard. He served on several general courts-martial during 1889.[1][2][3]
On 22 January 1890, Cooper was ordered back to Swatara for a second tour as her commanding officer, and he took command of her in March 1890. On 30 January 1891, he received orders to detach from Swatara on 7 February 1891. He then served on several courts martial and courts of inquiry during 1891 before being ordered on 18 November 1891 to special duty on the Board on Navy Yard Reorganization.[1][3]
Leaving the board, Cooper received command of the protected cruiser USS San Francisco on 18 July 1894. On 7 November 1894 he detached from San Francisco with orders to become Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, effective 15 November 1894. He remained superintendent until detached from the Academy on 5 July 1898.[3][5]
On 7 July 1898, Cooper reported to the protected cruiser USS Chicago to oversee her fitting out after a lengthy overhaul, and he became her commanding officer when she was recommissioned on 1 December 1898. After detaching from Chicago on 5 October 1899, he took a leave of absence, then received orders on 5 May 1900 to report aboard the battleshipUSS Iowa as her commanding officer, effective 9 June 1900. He detached from Iowa on 5 March 1901 and awaited orders until his assignment on 7 October 1901 to serve on a court martial at Tutuila in the Tutuila Islands (later American Samoa).[3][6]
Cooper reported for duty on 6 February 1903 as Senior Squadron Commander in the Asiatic Fleet. On 1 March 1903, he assumed command of the fleet's Southern Squadron and on 2 July 1903 of its Cruiser Squadron. On 21 March 1904, he assumed command of the entire Asiatic Fleet. However, his health went into decline, and on 1[3] or 11[9] July 1904 (sources vary), Cooper detached from the Asiatic Fleet. On 5 August 1904, he retired from the Navy.[3]
Personal life
Cooper's first wife was the former Addie Lou Paine. He married his second wife, Sarah Lawrence Stuart (1851–1881), on 3 October 1871. After she died, he married his third wife, Katherine J. Foote Saltus (1853–1937) on 24 June 1884. He fathered six children, Gerald Cooper (died 1887), Geraldine Cooper (died 1885), Stuart Cooper (1873–1924), Philip Benson Cooper (1877–1956), Dorothy Bradford Cooper Patterson (1889–1972), and Leslie B. Cooper (1894–1944);[citation needed] the latter became a nationally recognized helicopter expert and a United States Army Air Forceslieutenant colonel before dying in the crash of a U.S. Army Air Forces training plane in Pennsville, New Jersey in October 1944.[10]
Death
Cooper apparently contracted chronic malaria while in Nicaragua in 1870 and 1871 on the surveying expedition. Repeated bouts of malaria took a toll on his health, which became poor enough in 1904 to force him to relinquish command of the Asiatic Fleet and retire. He returned to the United States but never completely recovered, and died at Morristown, New Jersey, on 29 December 1912 of interstitial myocarditis and general arteriosclerosis.
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