The Cook & Brother Factory

One of the largest ordnance establishments in the South was the factory of Ferdinand W. C. and Francis L. Cook, known as Cook & Brother. First located in New Orleans, the works was shifted the day before the fall of the city, April 24 and 25, 1862, and ultimately re-established at Athens, Georgia. While in New Orleans, the firm contracted with the State of Alabama which took the total production of the works, about 25 rifles a day with 400 men at work. Louisiana interests endeavored to increase the production to 100 rifles a day, with the balance to Louisiana, but the capture of the city prevented this expansion.

Enfield rifles were made and examples exist marked cook & brother no, but the anonymous ordnanceman who for six weeks was attached to the Confederate Ordnance Department, stated very positively: “New Orleans turned out the best rifles I ever saw in the South. They were similar to the French Minie rifle, furnished with fine sword bayonets. The Louisiana troops were mostly armed with these.” Apparently he was in error, considering that the short Type Ml859 sergeant’s rifle with sword was “like the French minie,” as it also had a sword bayonet. When F. W. C. Cook commandeered a steamboat to carry his machinery up river, he gave 200 rifles to a local defense officer and retained 200 for his own crew which manned the boat. Later, bribing a Federal guard with a $10 bill, he managed to get a schooner full of steel out of the city also, to forge into rifles for rebellion.
Prior to evacuating New Orleans, Cook dallied with the prospect of making the LeMat revolver; doubtless he examined the doctor’s heavy octagon-barreled prototype made by Krider of Philadelphia, and then decided against it; such was a factor in sending Dr. LeMat aboard the Trent to England and eventual production on the continent. Cook stuck to Enfields, and on April 1, 1862, contracted to supply the Confederate Government with 30,000 Enfield rifles, “complete with sabre-bayonet, sheath and frog,” at $30. July, 1862 was the date of the scheduled first delivery, the contract to be completed by December, 1863. Apparently Cook did not propose to expand much; this still averages a delivery of 750 rifles monthly.
The move to Athens caused a renegotiation, with first delivery date scheduled for January, 1863. Purchasing Carr’s three story grist mill and 25 acres on Trail Creek outside of Athens, the Cooks put up a fine 2-story armory of two wings flanking a castellated center tower which served as offices. While some trouble was noticed by Confederate inspectors with the spring temper of the locks and their inletting, they were pronounced “the finest that I have seen of Southern manufacture.” Stamped on the case-hardened lock plate with a Sfars & Bars behind the hammer and cook & brother Athens, ga. in front, over the date, together with the gun serial number by the front lock screw, they are a well made article with stock of local walnut and brass from donated and confiscated brass ware.
Four patterns of Enfields were made, all conforming very closely to the British original. An inspector had urged that Cook be provided with a set of gauges, but it is unlikely this was done. All have brass trim, clamping bands, and while differences can be noted in shape of cone seat, all follow the Enfield pattern. The long Cook Enfield has three bands, 39-inch barrel of Enfield type. The Cook short rifle has 33-inch barrel, and two versions exist: with sword bayonet stud and with the front sight base serving as socket bayonet stud. Late in 1864 it was ordered that the manufacture of sword bayonets be discontinued, and the differences in the Cook series are in line with this order. A cavalry carbine with ramrod attached by a muzzle swivel like the Ml842 pistols was also made, barrel about 21 inches, and an artillery carbine, 24inch barrel. Rear sights were fixed, and the barrels are often marked proved, as well as the date.
Cook barrels were of unusual construction, of wrought Swedish iron which had been forged Wi inches square, then twisted while hot to lay the inclusions which would cause weakness at right angles to the line of bore. Instead of a seam being exposed to the force of the powder and bullet contact throughout its length, it would be twisted spirally, giving a better support to barrels of fundamentally inferior metal. While Cook lacked barrel rolling machinery, he bored these from the solid, using a battery of vertical boring machines he had developed, from which the chips fell out of the muzzles, eliminating the need to back off the cutting tools. Evidently the barrels were upright in the most approved Hartford fashion, spun around the stationary drills and cutting from their own weight.
Shortage of skilled labor gave Cook many problems, and in 1864 the C. S. Government considered buying the factory. Colonel Burton reported it to be: “ . . . the best fitted-up and regulated private armory that
I have yet inspected . . . The establishment reflects much credit upon the senior proprietor and he has exhibited a much better appreciation of the requirements of an armory than any other person who has attempted a like enterprise in the Confederacy.”
Burton wanted to buy the factory. Under his expanding authority, it was to come within his power to move workmen and tools from one place to another, to continue the flow of guns at the optimum rate. Cook and Brother would be a valuable link in this chain of production. But the works had to shut down when this did not come about, and the Government began to renege on its payments for arms delivered. Meanwhile the Cooks, having been commissioned Major F. W. C. Cook and Captain F. L. Cook, organized a reserve force of their workmen. Among fights the battalion engaged in was the battle of Griswoldville, when they united with the men of the revolver factories in the defense of the Griswold & Gunnison works. Near Hardeeville, South Carolina, Major Ferdinand Cook was killed on December 11, 1864.
In February and March, Colonel Burton proposed to move the entire carbine factory at Tallassee to Athens. On April 10, he informed Master Armorer Charles Henry Ford, who had re-opened the Cook factory for small arms repairs, that the move had begun. Ford was to find billeting for over 100 white workers and their families, but within a few days the matter was to become academic for Ford; the Confederacy was no more.
Francis Cook recovered control of his armory from the United States authorities long enough to have it ordered sold by the Clarke County, Georgia, sheriff to pay his personal debts. The building was bought for $18,000 by the Athens Manufacturing Company and today is a cotton mill.

Stars and Bars signed lockplate of Cook & Bro. carbine made at Athens, Ga., in 1864. Gun serial No. 6130 was made at one of bestequipped arms plants in South.

Cook & Bro. copied the Enfield faithfully in most models. Long arm was adapted for angular bayonet. Short rifle in New Orleans make may have been fitted for sword bayonets, but few specimens found reflect order of 1864 discontinuing issue of sword bayonets in South. Carbines were fitted with hinged rammers in early production, later used simple swell-end rod. Bottom carbine in Smithsonian Institution, is like-new specimen, shows twist pattern of iron barrels invented by Burton to increase strength in poor materials.