Private Samuel N. Cox was no ordinary Confederate private. Nearly everyone around him was single, but Private Cox was well into his second marriage. The few married men usually had young families—no kids or one kid, maybe two or three at most. Samuel Cox had three boys and two girls by his first wife and another boy by his second wife. The average age of the men killed around him was about 23. When Samuel Cox was killed on the Rose farm around 6 pm on July 2, he was 51 years old.

What was Samuel Cox doing in the Confederate army? Almost no one his age was there unless he was career military or an officer—Samuel Cox was neither. Nor was he conscripted—he was too old for conscription by six years. Cox was the oldest man possibly laid to rest (records differ on whether he died on the field or later in Virginia after the withdrawal) on the John Edward Plank farm and one of the oldest killed at the Battle of Gettysburg. Why was he there?

It’s hard to say for sure, but clues in his family history and his home life may give us clues. His father, Samuel Cox, died in 1811, the year of Private Cox’s birth as well as the year that Samuel’s brother, Savel, died in childhood at age 8. The older Samuel seems to have been asset-rich and cash poor. A few years after his passing, a guardian of the estate put his lands and enslaved people up for sale, almost certainly to settle debts and bring the family out of cash poverty. A short notice in the paper (highlighted in black in the image) shows this posting.

It’s worth browsing the rest of this page. Notice the number of advertisements offering rewards to capture runaway enslaved people; note also how many other estates are being liquidated, including the enslaved people from the estates. Note also the enslaved people who are simply for sale. Further, the elder Samuel Cox’s will called for the sale of enslaved people and an accounting of the cash recovered to be added to the estate. That demand and receipt are included here.

Private Cox grew up in a culture steeped in slaveholding and selling, where an estate’s wealth was largely measured by the acres and the people that could be monetized. In his own adult life, he acquired at least one enslaved girl (age 14) who was listed under his ownership in the 1850 Slave Schedule.

Before he headed off to war, Samuel saw fit to construct a will. His will gave his second wife a grand sum of $5, “which is in full of all and every thing else that I desire or intend her to have out of my estate” (marry well, readers!) while spelling out his land and slave holdings and stipulating that they be divided among his children.

Of all people, it appears that Samuel N. Cox was fighting for a way of life that he had been raised and immersed in and that went deep in his ancestry. He did not take long in joining up either—he was an early volunteer with the 10th Georgia Infantry in May 1861. The 10th Georgia saw severe action at the Seven Days Battles, Sharpsburg, Antietam, and Gettysburg; it was later involved in action in the western theater as well.

The life must have been punishing for the oldest man in the regiment, and yet, he withstood it until he marched across the Rose farm and into the sights of men from New York and Delaware. It’s unclear what happened to Samuel from there—one source has him dying and being buried on the Plank farm, while others have him withdrawing and dying in a Virginia or Maryland hospital. Today, a headstone stands for him at Hollywood Cemetery, though it’s unlikely that it marks his actual grave location, which is probably unknown.

The Cox family grew after Samuel’s death. At least three of his children married, and nearly 30 grandchildren followed. The picture below is the family of his son Wilson Lumpkin Cox (back row, middle, with the long beard).