Benjamin Cooling was born in Washington, D.C. on 8 December 1938, the son of Benjamin F. Cooling II and his wife, Helena E. née Weisshaar. His father was a chemist at a rubber company. While attending Coolidge High School in Washington, D.C., he was recruited to the military via a junior ROTC program and from 1952–1957, he was a cadet in the High School's Company D, 16th Special Battalion, 4th Training Regiment. He received his Bachelor of Arts from Rutgers University, where he sang in the Glee Club, participated in the Scarlet Rifles, and Phi Sigma Kappa; he was also treasurer of the University's History Club. His received his Master of Arts and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation, Benjamin Franklin Tracy: Lawyer, Soldier, Secretary of the Navy in 1969.
Career
Cooling served in the U.S. Army Reserve, 1956–1963. He was Professor of History at the National Defense University. He is also former officer and trustee of the Society for Military History, and received the Society's Victor Gondos Memorial Service Award. He is a past Fellow of the Company of Military Historians; he held an advanced research fellowship from the Naval War College in 1974. He has received the Distinguished Research Award from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, the Douglas Southall Freeman award from the Military Order of the Stars and Bars, the Fletcher Pratt award from the New York Civil War Round Table, and the Moncado award from the American Military Institute for his scholarship. Cooling has organized the papers of Benjamin Franklin Tracy, held at the National Archives, including materials related to Tracy's youth, education, legal training, Civil War Record, post-Civil War career as N.Y. Attorney, and his years as Secretary of the Navy. Of the latter, this includes information about the administration of the Navy Yard and Reforms, construction of the New Navy, relations with Congress, the administration of Pres. Benjamin Harrison, the development of the Naval War College, A.T. Mahan, the Naval Reserve Militia, and his negotiations of international relations with Chile, the Caribbean states, Bering Sea, Hawaii, and Venezuela, New York and Brooklyn politics, and Tracy's final years, 1832–1915. He has also organized and published 19 volumes of state papers relating to the Civil War, starting with the Succession Crisis. As of 2018, he was writing Not Your Father’s Military Industrial Complex; Defense, Business and America as National Security State, 1607–2017.
Writings
Cooley has published 120 works in 275 publications in 2 languages; his principal writings include:
Counter-thrust: from the Peninsula to the Antietam, 11 editions published between 2007– 2013
To the battles of Franklin and Nashville and beyond: stabilization and reconstruction in Tennessee and Kentucky, 1864– 1866, eight editions published between 1988– 2010
Forts Henry and Donelson—the key to the Confederate heartland, six editions published between 1987– 1997
Symbol, sword, and shield: defending Washington during the Civil War, ten editions published between 1975– 991
War, business, and American society: historical perspectives on the military-industrial complex, 13 editions published in 1977
The day Lincoln was almost shot: the Fort Stevens story, five editions published between 2013– 2015 in English
Gray steel and blue water Navy: the formative years of America's military-industrial complex, 1881–1917, nine editions published between 1979– 1999
Case studies in the development of close air support, 9 editions published between 1990– 2015
Benjamin Franklin Tracy: father of the modern American fighting Navy, five editions published in 1973
Jubal Early's Raid on Washington, six editions published between 1989– 2007
