He is the author of more than a dozen books on the American Civil War, including a trilogy on the defense of the District of Columbia, a biography of Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Franklin Tracy, and most recently Jubal Early: Robert E. Lee's Bad Old Man.
[1] While attending Coolidge High School in Washington, D.C., he was cadet colonel in a junior ROTC program[2] and a star athlete in football and track 1955–1957t.
[3] He received his Bachelor of Arts from Rutgers University,[4] where he sang in the Glee Club, participated in the Scarlet Rifles (Army drill team), helped organize a Civil War Round Table with Earl Schenk Myers, was a dorm proctor, member of the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity and the History Club.
[5] He received his Master of Arts and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and wrote his doctoral dissertation, Benjamin Franklin Tracy: Lawyer, Soldier, Secretary of the Navy in 1969.
[7] Cooling is a renowned national security and Civil War historian, educator and lecturer who has published twenty-two books and over one hundred articles on aspects of military, naval and air history.