Robert L. McCook Monument / Friedrich Hecker Monument

Robert L. McCook Monument, also, Friedrich Hecker Monument. . Robert L. McCook Monument , Robert McCook was a practicing lawyer in Cincinnati when the Civil War broke out. He left the security of his successful law practice to recruit and train the 9th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment. The 9th Ohio played a pivotal role in the first major Union Army victory at the Battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky., During this battle on September 10. 1861, Colonel McCook was shot in his right leg. After a short recovery period, he returned to active duty with the 9th Ohio and was promoted to Brigadier General., Near Selma, Alabama, suffering from his previous wound and no longer able to walk or ride a horse. General McCook was riding in an army ambulance carriage when McCook's party was attacked. He was shot in the belly with a pistol and died the next day at the age of 34., Robert's father, uncle and twelve cousins also served the Union Army during the War. This family of Ohioans was widely known and celebrated as The Fighting McCooks. Three of Robert's brothers also were killed in action or died of complications from wounds., This sculpture was created by Cincinnati artist Leopold Fetweis (1848-1912) and dedicated in 1878., Friedrich Hecker Monument , Although Friedrich Karl Franz Hecker never lived in Cincinnati, he is credited with founding the Cincinnati Turnverein (Turners). This social, cultural, educational and athletic organization was the first such society in America, The Turners remain an active civic association in Cincinnati today., Hecker was a German war hero who fled to Switzerland and then America after a failed revolution attempt in Germany. He was considered the most popular of a revolutionary group known as the Forty-Eighters, and was welcomed by a crowd of over 20,000 upon his arrival in New York in 1848. His political agenda sought constitutionally guaranteed freedom of the press, freedom of conscience, and academic freedom. As such, he was a hero to German immigrants living in America, and specifically in Cincinnati., Similar to Robert L. McCook, Hecker assembled an entire regiment of German Americans to preserve the Union early in the Civil War. Colonel Hecker was a brigade commander of the 24th and later the 82nd Illinois Regiment, known as "the Second Hecker Regiment.” He was wounded at Chancellorsville and left the army in March 1864. The sculpture of Hecker is by Cincinnati artist Leopold Fetweis and was dedicated in 1883., (captions) , General McCook leading in the Union Troops in Battle , General Robert L. McCook , General Robert L. McCook being shot, Friedrich Hecker, 1875, age 64, St. Louis, MO, USA, from family collection of Edward Hecker , Active Class from Cincinnati , Cincinnati Turner Hall, Vine Street