Mrs. Martha Cox and daughter Virginia

Martha Cox, b. abt 1836 (married Caldwell C. Cox)

Virginia B. Cox, b. abt. 1853

July 13, 1862 Virginia at age 9 and nearly blind, told Col. James W. Porter's Confederate Partisan Rangers where the U.S. flag was hidden by the Union militia after the capture of Memphis, (Scotland Co.) Missouri.

Martha Cox was the daughter of a Mr. Lovell who owned the Lovell Hotel, where about twenty of the Confederates were invited to dinner.

While the Confederates were retelling their story of the capture of the armory, the little girl, Virginia, interrupted saying, "You didn't get their flag." A soldier replied, "Oh, yes, we did". Virginia: "You didn't get the great big United States flag, because they don't keep it there…I know where it is. I'll show you where it is. I want you to take it. I don't like the Union soldiers. You are the men I like." That said, then Virginia led the men out to where the flag was hidden.

A younger sister, Mary Lemuel Cox, (age 4 in 1862) remembered singing a "rebel song" and Union soldiers ordering her grandfather to make her stop, which only made her sing even louder.

In 1909, Virginia was living in an institution for the blind in St. Louis. At that time only "able to distinguish day from night".

VIRGINIA & MARTHA COX