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History of Wetzel County, West Virginia
by John C. McEldowney, Jr., 1901

Pages 100-101
CAPT. FRIEND CLAY COX.

Wetzel county has produced no more knightly son or finer gentleman
than Friend C. Cox, and this volume would be incomplete without a
loving tribute to his memory.

Friend C. Cox was the son of Friend Cox, a sketch of whose life we
publish, and Susan Thistle Cox, his wife, and was born April 21st,
1844. The stirring events leading to the civil war between the States,
which so profoundly stirred men's souls, made a man out of the boy of
sixteen or seventeen, whose unusually handsome face and person and
brilliant mind had already made him a leading figure in the life of
both New Martinsville and the county. His influence had been felt in
local politics, and the campaign of 1860 found him making ringing
speeches for Breckenridge & Lane. Those were stirring days in Wetzel,
and the outspoken sympathizer with the Southern cause soon heard
rumors that his arrest had been planned by zealous Federal partisans,
whose active efforts sent many embryo Confederates to Camp Chase and
similar safe retreats.

But the activities of young Friend Cox were not to thus be confined.
He promptly left home, telling his mother he intended to embark on the
lower river, with a relative who owned a steamer; and, with Robert
McEldowney and other brave spirits, he made his way to the Confederate
lines. He enlisted as a member of the Shriver Grays, a company
organized at Wheeling, and served through the war as a member of the
immortal Stonewall Brigade.

Of Friend Cox, the soldier, we need not speak at length, for his
record is one with that of the invincible battalion, whose
achievements will be studied and analyzed as long as men learn the art
and science of war and find inspiration in the record of heroic deeds.
He knew not fear, and one who fought by his side has said that amid
the whistle of bullets and the shriek of shells he was the genius of
battle incarnate; and General James A. Walker, the last commander of
the Brigade, in a recent letter to a personal friend, says of Captain
Cox: "He was as brave as any knight who ever drew sword, and I loved
him." Although the youngest of them all, he attained the highest rank
of any of the sons of New Martinsville who served in the war. For
gallant conduct on the field of battle he, by successive promotions,
reached the position of Captain and Adjutant General of the Stonewall
Brigade, which rank he held at the time of the surrender. His war
record is well epitomized in the sentence uttered at the time of his
death by a leading newspaper man of West Virginia: "He bore the
reputation of a gallant soldier and a valued officer."

Subsequent to the civil war Captain Cox engaged in business in
Baltimore, St. Louis, and New York City. From the last named city he
returned to his native town to die, having contracted consumption
while in the army. His death occurred on the 26th day of January,
1876.

Handsome, courtly, knightly, loved and admired by his friends, both
men and women, old Wetzel may well be proud that she produced him, and
her younger sons may well emulate the vigor and intensity with which
he met life's problems. This inadequate tribute can best be classed in
the language of one of his dearest friends: "It is difficult for one
who feels his loss as a personal bereavement, to write fittingly of
the dead, much less to offer consolation to the living; but if
gentleness and kindness, and courage and generosity, and all the
virtues which make men esteem and love each other, are reckoned in the
final settlement, our Friend will have a part in the first
resurrection."

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