Subbing In

Daniel Nixon Cox was the husband of my great aunt, Keziah Blanchard. He was born on April 27, 1827 in Onslow County North Carolina and died on March 5, 1910 in Mayo, Florida.


Daniel and Keziah Cox

He moved to Taylor County Florida in 1859. After his wife Beneter died, he married Keziah Blanchard on June 16, 1874 in Taylor County Florida. She had been married before to William James Smart who died around 1870.


Daniel Cox was a farmer and was listed as the Taylor County Judge on the 1880 census. The records in Perry, Florida show him as the County Judge from 1878 to 1881.




During the Civil War he enlisted as a Private in Company E, 5th Florida Infantry Regiment on March 3, 1862. He then did what men with money had done since the Revolutionary War, found someone else to serve in his place.



Daniel Cox Record

His service record shows he hired a man named David Vickory as a substitute and on July 16, 1862 Cox was discharged.

David Vickory served for over two years but was wounded in The Battle of the Wilderness in Orange County Virginia and died on August 1, 1864. I couldn't find him on the 1860 census so don't know if he had a family.


David Vickory Record

Hiring a sub to avoid going to war was not new and was popular during the Revolutionary war also. When the Federal draft law was enacted after the start of the Civil War men up north avoided the Union army by paying a fee of $300 to another who would then enlist on their behalf. John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil, Grover Cleveland who later served as President and many others took advantage of this to avoid serving in the war. If you remember all the bad press about Clinton and Bush and the way they dodged going to Viet Nam, can you imagine what would have been said if they had just hired someone to go for them?



Daniel Cox originally filed for a Confederate pension in 1901 and it was approved on January 11, 1902. He was paid $120 per year.



In 1909 the State of Florida passed a new Confederate pension law so he was required to reapply and this time he was denied. They said because he had hired a substitute after just a couple months of service, he was not entitled to a pension.



Daniel's son, Edward William Cox, appealed the decision. Edward had married Keziah Blanchard's daughter from her first marriage, Columbia Smart so there are several family connections here. Edward sent a five page handwritten letter to the pension board. He also had a local attorney write a letter but both were turned down. 

Letter from Governor

Edward didn't stop at that, he wrote another five page letter to Governor Albert Waller Gilchrist on November 16, 1909. Just three days later the Governor wrote back, saying Daniel Cox was not entitled to the pension because he had not served the minimum time required in the new law of one year in Confederate Army service.



Daniel and Keziah are buried in the Corinth Primitive Baptist Church Cemetery in Madison County Florida.







With all the applications appeals and letters, Daniel Cox's Civil War pension file is one of the largest I have found. The last thing in it was from 1969 when his great grandson Ernest Cox wrote to the State for copies of his grandfather's service records.