This excerpt from The Family of V.O. and Sallie Alexander (Compiled and written by Connie Alexander Mitchell, 1982) was written by Albert Alexander, Mrs. Cocke's nephew:
Auntie had three husbands, two of whom died during the civil war and the third did not live long after their marriage and I believe died from injuries suffered during the civil war. As I recall, a story that Auntie told us about the civil war days was that her first husband had left for the war riding a fine white horse. Several months after his leaving Auntie says she was standing on the front porch of their farm home when she saw a fiery horse such as her husband had ridden away on, come galloping toward the house down the lane on which he had ridden away. As the horse neared the porch where Auntie was standing, he gave a shrill neigh and vanished into space. Later Auntie learned that her husband had been killed in action on the same day that the horse came charging up the lane to the house. Auntie was most truthful and never told wild stories so we all believed that she saw and heard what she said did about the event.
During the civil war she and all the confederates involved, hated Sherman and his men with a passion. She said various bands of yankees appeared at their farm in Mississippi at various times and always ramsacked [sic] the premises, taking everything they could find of value, including livestock, food and property of all kinds. She said they even slashed open the feather beds and emptied them to see if anything had been hidden therein. She also said they had an old peacock on their farm and as he became aware of the coming of the Yankees, he would give a loud screech as if in warning and fly away not to return until the Yankees had gone.
The only other thing Olivia hated more than Yankees was whiskey. She often chided her aging father James Henry for his drinking -- which consisted of a daily walk to his club and a single shot of whiskey with the boys. Her worst fears about his obsession with alcohol were realized when on Christmas Eve while walking to the club for his customary celebrations he slipped on the ice and broke his hip. He died six months later of the resulting complications at the age of 97 (obituary). She, of course, blamed his tragic death on the whiskey!
