Theodore Cox - civil war. He was training to be a guard for Grant when the war ended.

Theodore Blackburn Cox - Mar 16, 1845 - Feb 19, 1930.
Not long ago a woman from California purchased several old picture frames from an antique store in Montana. Inside one frame was a replicated hand-painted tintype of a young soldier identified as Theodore Blackburn Cox who was buried in the Yuma Cemetery almost a century ago.

The woman kept the frame but kindly forwarded the photograph to the Colorado Genealogical Society and it was then given to Arlene Glenn of the Yuma Museum. A small notation on the back of the antique photograph suggested that Cox was “training to be (a) personal bodyguard for Ulysses S. Grant.”

We could find no references to him becoming a bodyguard for Grant. But the facts we were able to uncover proved even more interesting.

Theodore “Dorie” Cox was born March 6, 1845, near the small town of Sparta, Mo. He was raised on a family farm near Maryville during one of the nation’s most tumultuous times. Constant raiding and plundering of the Missouri countryside by heavily armed guerilla fighters like William “Bloody Bill” Anderson quickly turned Cox and his family against the Confederacy. And at the age of 16 or 17, he signed on to fight for the Union, joining Company F of the 12th Regiment Missouri Cavalry.

Through U.S. military records, we were able to track his military service by following the official reports and actions of the 12th Missouri Cavalry. We know, for example, that Dorie was involved in multiple skirmishes and fights across Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi. And he was certainly among the mounted troops who pursued Nathan Bedford Forrest in 1864.

If you are history buff, you will recognize the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest. Union General William Tecumseh Sherman once said “that devil Forrest must be hunted down and killed if it costs 10,000 lives and bankrupts the Federal Treasury.”

Cox also participated the Battle of Nashville that sealed the fate of the Confederacy and opened the door for Sherman’s “March to Sea.” Less than four months after Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Cox was still riding and fighting. He soon found himself headed west as part of the Powder River Expedition of 1865, a military strike force designed to punish the Sioux, Arapaho and Cheyenne for their so-called depredations along the Bozeman Trail.

Cox’s expedition was led by several other notable historical figures, among them frontier scout Jim Bridger, Frank North and North’s Pawnee scouts. And Cox eventually found himself pursuing new enemies with names like Roman Nose, Crazy Horse and Red Cloud.

During one of those skirmishes, Cox’s horse went down and his saddle’s pommel crushed his stomach and pelvic area. He suffered severe internal injuries and those eventually led to his official discharge from the military on April 9, 1866.

As often happens to soldiers of war, ghosts of the past began to haunt him. His injuries never quite healed, neither the physical ones nor the mental ones.

Dorie became a heavy consumer of whiskey and other malted beverages, according to his granddaughter, Phoebie Jane Cox. He was no doubt self-medicating to alleviate the pain and injuries he suffered while serving with the U.S. military. In addition to internal pain, his military discharge papers indicate that he was partially blind in one eye, the result of a cannon explosion near his face.

Discharged from military service, Dorie drifted in and out of small town across Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska, moving often with his wife and children until he eventually settled down on a homestead near Eckley in 1908. He died at the ripe old age of 84 on Feb. 19, 1930, and was buried in the Yuma Cemetery alongside his estranged wife, Mary Catherine Bear, and two of their six children.

It’s worth noting that Theodore Blackburn Cox isn’t the only Civil War veteran buried in the hallowed ground of the Yuma Cemetery. Cox shares that military honor with a much more famous Union veteran named George J. Shopp, who remains Yuma County’s only Medal of Honor recipient. We will share Shopp’s story and his distinguished military service record around Veteran’s Day.
Civil War photo presented to Yuma Museum
August 2014 - article in the Yuma Pioneer By MATT VINCENT