McAllister A. Hooker was a private in Company A of the87 Illinois Mounted Infantry.  He was born 01/10/1838 about 20 miles from Henderson,in Henderson County, Kentucky to Robert Hooker and Levicey Harmon.  Levicey was the widow of Jonathan Ashby andthe second wife of Robert Hooker. McAllister therefore had half brothers and sisters of both his motherand father.  He moved with his naturalsisters to near McLeansboro in Hamilton County, Illinois where he marriedElizabeth Jane Cottingham on 01/13/1858, shortly before the outbreak of theCivil War.  He volunteered with others from the county andserved in Company A, Eighty-seventh Illinois Volunteer Infantry.  At the time he volunteered his family hadalready begun with son George Lee Hooker, age 3, and the two month old childSarah.  As a moderately literate anddedicated family man, he regularly wrote to his wife "Lizzie", whoresided outside McLeansboro, with his two young children.  Late in the war he maintained the day book. I am going to post to the list some of his letters you should watch for any mention he may have made of any of your ancestors Patrick J. Anderson http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=patanderson 9654 Baltimore Avenue, Laurel, Maryland 20723