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From: "Derrell Cox" <>
Subject: [CivilWarWomen] Confederate spy
Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 11:54:08 -0800


I am going to post the information that I have from an article. I have not been able to confirm any of it. If any one has anything to help. Please let me know.
Thanks
D Cox


"Callie Cox, Confederate Spy" by Chris Morgan

Nancy Caledonia cox was born in Pine Valley, a small rural community in eastern Yalobusha County, on February 6, 1835, the sixth of her parents' thirteen children. Her parents were among the area's earliest settlers, arriving in the early 1830's. Nancy's father Reuben Cox, a son of Arris and Ruth Cox, was "born July 10, 1803, in Franklin Co., Georgia. Her mother Joicy Hampton, daughter of John and Joicy Hampton, and a sister of the famous Confederate General Wade Hampton, wsa born June 18, 1808, in Jackson Co., Georgia, died Sept. 1, 1855, in Yalobusha County. Their home was near the old Tabernacle Cemetery.
On Dec. 26, 1850, when Nancy was a couple months short of her sixteenth birthday, she married John Duke Rayburn, the son of her parents' well-to-do neighbors Henry and Elizabeth (Duke) Rayburn. Nancy was beautiful, poised and well-educated, having been carefully schooled in the social graces. She was also high-spirited, adventurous and daring, qualities that would carve for her a unique place in Southern history, although few who knew her were aware of the dangerous role she played.
When the Civil War broke upon the South, Nancy's husband John answered the call, entering the Confederate Army as a major. With her husband away, Nancy began to fret about being cooped up and inactive, and longed to do something for the cause herself. It was not long, however, until General Chalmers, Commander of the Fifth Military District, Department of Mississippi, learned of Nancy's desire and offered her a job...as a Confederate spy.
Without consulting her husband or family, she readily accepted his offer. She was placed in charge of seven agents operating in and out of the Federal garrison in Memphis, collecting intelligence regarding movements of Yankee foraging parties working out of memphis, stripping the farms of North Mississippi. The information she gathered was to be turned over to the Confederate Irregulars, who effectively operated throughout the counties of North Mississippi. Nancy chose to use her maiden name for this job, calling herself Callie Cox. She quickly became a familiar face in the neighborhood around Memphis' Federal garrison. Her quick wit and sparkling personality made her a favorite of the officers there and she soon found herself invited tot the garrison dances and balls.
The bleak and foreboding Federal prison block in Memphis, where suspected spies and saboteurs were interned, was widely known as a place of horror. The chilling tales that occasionally escaped its walls made Nancy all the more careful as she went about the extremely dangerous task of gathering intelligence. Despite her femininity and youth, however, Nancy was a natural spy and took great delight in fulfilling her appointed mission.
With the intelligence Nancy and her agents supplied them, the irregulars would move to an area and, lying in wait, watch the Yankees until they and their agents had gathered the farm produce and loaded it onto their wagons. Then the Rebels would suddenly appear from nowhere, pounce like panthers on the unsuspecting raiders, recovering the produce already gathered. The irregulars at other times would capture entire wagon trains, including horses, guns and ammunition. Occasionally they were even fortunate enough to capture samll pieces of field artillery.
This went on for two years before Nancy fell under suspicion. But luck was with her. Two of her scouts, Confederate agents posing as enlisted men in the Federal Army on garrison duty in Memphis, happened to overhear a Yankee sergeant telling some of his buddies that he had been put in charge of a special detail. He was to report to a big officers ball the following evening and take into custody two Southern ladies and their maids, on charges of spying. He named Callie Cox as one of the two ladies and their maids, on charges of spying. He named Callie Cox as one of the two ladies, she being well-known to every Yankee soldier in the garrison. Nancy's four cohorts posing as Yankee enlisted men had not yet come under suspicion. The two rebels, who overheard the indiscreet Yankee sergeant, passed a warning to Nancy, and she, with the two soldiers (who were actually Confederate lieutenants), immediately laid plans for the escape of the entire spy ring, consisting of Na!
ncy, her cousin Betty Cox, their two personal maids (slaves belonging to Nancy's father) and four Confederate officers posing as Yankee soldiers.
Early the next evening, as the entire Memphis garrison was busy with last minute preparations for the officers ball that night, Nancy and her group of spies slipped into waiting carriages and made a mad dash for the Mississippi state line. In the Coldwater River bottoms, southeast of Olive Branch, they were intercepted by a group of Confederate irregulars out on night patrol. Leading the group to a spot on Pigeonroost Creek, the spies were transferred to carriages belonging to the rebels. The Yankee military carriages were ditched and burned.
Sunrise the following morning found Nancy and her fellow spies bidding one another farewell. They pledge themselves to silence and went their separate ways. It was a pledge apparently well kept. Nancy returned to her home in Pine Valley and resumed her identity as Mrs. John Duke Rayburn.
The command at the Federal garrison in Memphis offered a $20,000 reward for the capture of the lady spy Callie Cox, a reward never claimed. After the War, Nancy and her husband moved to Coffeeville, where they lived out their lives. Nancy died there on February 20, 1903, and her husband John on January 20, 1907.

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