DUBLIN, IRELAND (July 4, 2026) — On a July 4th in the 1840s, neighbors in Marlboro County, South Carolina, gave an old Revolutionary War veteran the place of honor at a community barbecue. After the celebration, William Cox mounted his horse and rode toward home. Crossing the same mill-dam where, decades earlier, a Tory neighbor had tried to kill him — and where William had captured the Tory instead — his horse took fright. He fell. A few days later, he was gone.
William Cox was the son of Emanuel Cox. Emanuel and several of his sons fought under Brig. Gen. Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox,” in the Cheraws District Regiment. Through another branch of the family runs a connection — still unproven in the surviving records — to Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene, Washington’s most trusted commander in the Southern Campaign.
Later, the Cox and Greene lines united in Kentucky when Eliza Greene Biggs married into the Cox family, bringing with her roots that stretch back to early Jamestown settlers and the Plantagenet kings of England.
This is the story of one family’s Revolutionary service, unlikely ancestral connections, and a final Independence Day ride.
Read the full story here.