The Carmack-Cooper Shooting

Late on the afternoon of November 9, 1908, five shots rang out from the corner of Seventh and Union in downtown Nashville. As the echoes faded, former U.S. Senator Edward W. Carmack lay dead and Robin J. Cooper, son of prominent businessman Colonel Duncan B. Cooper, reeled from the impact of a bullet intended for his father.

Was it a planned assassination or just an unfortunate incident in an old friendship that politics had turned into bitter enmity?
Through extensive research, including a study of actual trial documents and the papers of both Cooper and Carmack, this account explores the events leading up to this deadly encounter and the resulting murder trial that has gone down in history as one of the South’s most famous.

James Summerville served as a State Senator in the Tennessee legislature and is the author of several books.

by James Summerville

Format: softcover (6×9)
Pages: 231
Bibliographic Info: 52 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2014
pISBN: 978-0-7864-9386-9
eISBN: 978-1-4766-3221-6
Imprint: McFarland

Preface ix
1. The Killing 7
2. The Senator 19
3. The Colonel 49
4. The Trial 73
5. The Whirligig of Politics 113
6. The Murder of Robin Cooper 143
Epilogue. The Days of Ninevah and Tyre 171
Notes 181
Works Cited 205
Index 213

• “Examines the shooting, trial, and appeals in intricate and well-documented detail…a good read, well researched”—Tennessee Historical Quarterly
• “The story is carefully researched and well told…the attention to detail alone makes the book worthwhile”—Journal of East Tennessee History
• “Thoroughly researched…valuable”—Tennessee Librarian
• “Fascinating”—Commercial Appeal (Memphis)
• “This is no sanitized or romanticized story, it’s a straight ahead, unflinching rendition”—Nashville Banner
• “A Tennessee historical classic”—Tennessee Bar Journal