Real Son Honored In North Carolina

Son of Civil War veteran remembered

Regan Hill photo
John Barkley of the Sons of the Confederate Veterans and nephew of the late Joe Fox, honors his uncle during graveside services at Iredell Memorial Gardens Friday morning.


By Jim McNally
Statesville R&L

Published: April 4, 2009

For most members of the Civil War aficionado group Sons of the Confederate Veterans, the name was something of a symbolic gesture to an ancestor, two or three or more generations away.

That was not the case with Joe Fox.

The 98-year-old Statesville man, who died Monday and was buried Friday, was literally the son of a Confederate soldier. His father, Albert Fox, served valiantly under famed Southern leader Gen. Robert E. Lee and was seriously wounded in 1864 in a battle near Pittsburgh.

"It is amazing to think about the amount of time and the history that took place during the lives of this one generation: this father and son," said Joe Fox's great-nephew, C. Wilson White. "Grandpa Albert was born in 1845, when the country had what must have been its 12th or 13th president."

Depending on what month Albert Fox was born, the United States executive branch was controlled by either John Tyler or James K. Polk, who was inaugurated in March 1845 as the nation's 11th president.
Albert Fox would lose his right arm as a result of injuries and learn to write with his left, White recalls in the family lore of his great grandfather.

"And I've seen his writing and it's a lot nicer and prettier than mine," White said. "He was a very successful farmer and even served two terms in the state House of Representatives."

Albert Fox married twice. His first wife died near the turn of the 20th century and, while in his 60s, he married a woman about half his age and very close to the age of his grown children. Joe Fox, born in December 1910, was the middle child of that union.

While, in terms of history, those who were first in one endeavor or another are given special places, the Fox family dominates the Iredell County registry on Civil War lasts.

http://www2.statesville.com/content/2009/apr/04/son-civil-war-veteran-remembered/news-local/