  Exploring the uncharacterized magnetic phases of Co$^{2+}$ chain compounds is
critical for finding new low-dimensional magnets hosting quantized excitations.
We map the unexplored magnetic phases of the Co$^{2+}$ chain compound
Li$_2$CoCl$_4$. Magnetometry reveals magnetic ordering below 7 K with a
metamagnetic transition near 16.5 kOe and a gradual transition to a
field-aligned paramagnetic state above 31 kOe. Curie-Weiss fits to the high
temperature susceptibility reveal a high-spin (spin-$\frac{3}{2}$) state for
cobalt. Heat capacity data, though, give a magnetic entropy change of 5.46
J/mol, consistent with cobalt effective spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ systems. To
characterize the zero-field antiferromagnetic ordering, we separately
calculated the energy of proposed magnetic structures with density functional
theory and collected 3.5 K neutron diffraction data, finding that
Li$_2$CoCl$_4$ has ferromagnetic chains with antiferromagnetic interactions
between them. Increasing field rotates these spin chains, producing the
antiferromagnetic to intermediate to paramagnetic transition sequence.
