John H. Cooper was probably the son of Lloyd Thomas Cooper and Nancy Huguley of Wilkes, Harris, and Troup Counties, Georgia, and Chambers County, Alabama. His father died before the date of this letter. At the time, John's sister, Mary Ann, who soon after married John T. Collier, was living in Forsyth, Georgia, while his mother and younger siblings were in Troup County. This same John married Martha A. in 1857 and had two children before enlisting in the Confederate Army in 1862. He died at Spotsylvania in 1864.