Chronicles of Notre Dame du Lac
Edward Sorin, CSC -- Translated by John M. Toohey, CSC, 1895

---

1864

pg 481       suspicion.  At that terrible and bloody day of Nashville, December 
             16th, there were two Protestant ministers also present: the 
             official report does not even mention them.
                  When this same Father, worn out by fatigue and almost a 
             wreck, some weeks afterwards, preaching at mass, announced to his 
             regiment that this superior recalled him, and it was evident that 
             his state of weakness did not permit him any longer to continue a 
             ministry which was too burdensome for him, those veterans, as he 
             himself relates, who during nearly four years had fearlessly met 
             all the imaginable dangers of war, began to weep like children.  
             On that very day a petition was drawn up and signed by all the 
             officers of the regiment and by the General of the division, who 
             with his own hand declared that the recall of F. Cooney "would be 
             a calamity."  This document is a real masterpiece of the noblest 
             sentiments of the human heart.  The superior of Notre Dame could 
             not resist; F. Cooney could nowhere else be more highly esteemed,