Lowell Cleveland Cook was born on December 9, 1838, in Mendon, Massachusetts, to Olney Cook and Melinda Wilcox. His father was a farmer who owned $5,000 of real estate and $450 of personal property by 1860. Cook grew up and attended school in Mendon, and by 1860, he was also working as a farmer.
He enlisted in the Union army on June 6, 1861, and he mustered in as a private in Company I of the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry. The regiment took part in the First Battle of Bull Run, the Battle of Seven Pines, the Seven Days’ Battles, the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Battle of Gettysburg, and the Overland Campaign. By December 1862, after the Battle of Fredericksburg, he expressed intense frustration with the Union war effort. “We are fighting for a mean set of politicians,” he wrote, “so mean that they would willingly see this country drained to the last man, and the last dollar providing they could sit in the high places lean back on their cushions have all the luxuries the world can give and tell us to go on and fight our countrys battles.” Nonetheless, he remained “willing to fight to put down the rebellion.”
He eventually earned a promotion to corporal. He was wounded in the Battle of the Wilderness on May 5, 1864, and he mustered out on June 17, 1864. He later served in Company B of the 1st United States Veteran Volunteer Infantry.
He returned to Mendon after leaving the army and resumed his work as a farmer. By 1870, he owned $1,500 of personal property. He married Mary Jane Gallagher on January 5, 1871, and they had at least two children: Jessie, born around 1874; and Gracie, born around 1876. He earned a living as a farmer in Mendon. He applied for a federal pension in September 1879 and eventually secured one. He remained in Mendon for the rest of his life, and he died there on September 21, 1921.