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From Commemorative Biographical Record of the Counties of Rock, Green, Grant, Iowa and Lafayette, Wisconsin, publ. 1901 - page 307
ALVIN S. COOK is one of the old Union veterans to whom the citizens of Grant county delight to do honor, alike for his patriotic services throughout the war of the Rebellion and for his moral and intellectual worth as a man. He was born in Erie county, N.Y., in 1838, one of the seven children of Orson and Resina (ALBY) COOK, who came from the Empire State to the (then) Territory of Wisconsin in 1845. Two years later the father died.
Alvin S. COOK grew up in Grant county, which has been his home for fifty-five years, and both for his own and his parents' sake he is held in high regard. It was there that he married Miss Emily Jane NIXON, and there, too, their nine children - four sons and five daughters - were born, as follows: Emma, July 14, 1864 (died April 14, 1871); Olive M., June 22, 1867; George J., Nov. 1, 1869 (died Feb. 15, 1895); Claria F., July 26, 1872; Nettie M., Oct. 26, 1874; Elmer P., June 3, 1878; Alta R., June 15, 1881; Henry A., Aug. 26, 1883; Melvin T., May 11, 1885.
Our subject was scarcely more than twenty-one years of age when the harbor of Charleston, S.C., reverberated with the echoes of the first shot fired upon the American flag by Rebel hands, and it stirred his patriotic soul to its very depths. He and his brother Orson enlisted in Company C, 2d Wisconsin Cavalry, the brother losing his life in the service. After a year spent at the front Alvin S. was sent home on a "sick furlough," as there appeared to be danger of his constitution giving way, and not long afterward he received an honorable discharge. But, with restored health, he once more resolved to do battle in his country's cause, and re-enlisted, this time in the 1st Wisconsin Cavalry. He remained in active service until the close of the war, participating in all the sieges, skirmishes and battles in which that justly famed body of troops took part, and aiding in the capture of Jefferson Davis as that redoubtable chief conspirator was about to flee. At Burnt Hickory, Ga., his horse was shot under him, and, falling upon its rider, inflicted upon him injuries of so serious a nature that he has never fully recovered from them. As years pass over the head of this grizzled veteran of many hard-fought field he remembers his devotion to his country in pride; though as age brings more and more forcibly to mind the privations and sufferings which he underwent, his broken health and weakened frame, he heaves no sigh of regret, and utters no word of complaint. Mr. COOK is a Republican in political faith. His religious connection is with the Church of God.
This biography generously submitted by Carol Holmbeck