page_title: Joseph Alexander Cooper
section_title: Later life
hierarchical_section_title: Joseph Alexander Cooper / Later life
caption_attribution_description: English: American general Joseph A. Cooper (1823–1910)
context_page_description: Joseph Alexander Cooper was an American farmer, soldier, and civil servant. A Southern Unionist, he fought for the Union Army during the American Civil War, commanding units at Mill Springs, Stones River, Chickamauga, Franklin, Nashville, Bentonville, and in the Knoxville and Atlanta campaigns. He had achieved the rank of Brevet Major General by the time he was mustered out in early 1866.
  After the war, Cooper commanded the Tennessee State Guard, a state militia organized by Governor William G. Brownlow to quell postwar violence across Tennessee. He served as an internal revenue agent during the 1870s before moving to Kansas, where he spent the final decades of his life.
context_section_description: In October 1867, Cooper was among the candidates considered for the soon-to-be-vacant U.S. Senate seat of David T. Patterson, but the legislature elected Brownlow. In May 1869, Cooper attended the contentious state Republican Party convention, which was wrought with consistent infighting between supporters of Senter and supporters of William B. Stokes. When Alfred Cate, Roderick R. Butler, and Thomas H. Pearne scuffled over the chairman's gavel, a frustrated Cooper restored control and convinced the delegates to adjourn for the day in order to cool off. He told the delegates, "Go, and drink less bad whiskey and you will be more capable of doing business."  Later that year, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Cooper internal revenue collector for the Knoxville District.  He held this position until 1879, when he was removed following an intraparty power struggle.
  In 1880, Cooper moved to Stafford County, Kansas, where he became involved in farming, and supported local Republican Party candidates.  Shortly after his arrival in Stafford County, he was appointed moderator of the South Central Baptist Association of Kansas, a position he held until 1909.  On April 3, 1891, he was injured in the city of Larned in Pawnee County when he was struck by a railroad car, though he recovered. He died at his home near St. John on May 20, 1910.  His body was returned to Knoxville, Tennessee, where he was interred in the Knoxville National Cemetery.
caption: Cooper, photographed in 1906
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