Thaddeus and
Mary Ann Cox
(Pasquotank County)
Featured Characters – Divided Allegiances
Thaddeus
and Mary Ann Cox
Courtesy of Joyce Corbett Reitz and
James Thadius Palmer
Pasquotank County resident Lieutenant Thaddeus Cox
and his pregnant wife Mary Ann were killed as a
result of guerilla activity. Cox had been a common school teacher
before the war and had enlisted into the 1st North Carolina Union
Volunteers as second lieutenant. Cox’s company spent the winter
of 1862-1863 in Pasquotank County, recruiting more soldiers and
protecting local Unionists. The armed Union sympathizers quickly attracted the attention of Confederate
guerrillas. On January 5, 1863, rebel
partisans shot and killed Cox’s first lieutenant, Nathaniel Sanders. Promoted to fill Sanders’s position, Cox
worried about his personal safety and the safety of his family. Warned by local Unionist B.F. Keaton of a
possible threat against him, Cox decided to move his family into Elizabeth City.
On February 9, 1863, escorted by four members of his regiment and ten
armed black men, Cox loaded his wife and two children into a wagon and set out for
safe haven fourteen miles away.
Unfortunately for the Union officer, Willis B. Sanderlin’s Confederate
guerillas knew about Cox’s movements. As
the Union party passed over the bridge at Newbegun Creek, the guerillas opened
fire. Cox
and
his
four-year-old daughter Martha fell from the cart and died immediately
while Mary Ann was mortally hit in the shoulder by a bullet. The horses
ran off with the cart towards Bayside Plantation, where the buggy
was reined in. Only
seven-year-old Mary Elizabeth was found inside, unharmed.