Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/956

892 1889. Since then he has been quite successful in the management of a grocery house at Berkley. In 1871 he was married to Joanna, daughter of Jonathan Bateman, of Norfolk county.

James D. Godsey, an artilleryman of the Twenty-second Virginia battalion, now residing at Newport News, was born in Chesterfield county, Va., June 19, 1842, the son of Francis and Parmelia (Hatcher) Godsey. The father dying before the birth of his son James, the latter was cared for by his mother, upon the farm of her father, Abner Hatcher, in Chesterfield county, and given a common school education. He entered the Confederate service in January, 1862, as a private in a company first designated as the Second Virginia heavy artillery, and subsequently known as Company A of the Twenty-second Virginia battalion. His first service was in the Peninsular campaign which was begun by McClellan's invasion soon after his enlistment, and at the battle of Gaines' Mill. June 27, 1862, he fell with a wound in the right side that totally disabled him for further active service. He was confined to bed for three months, but, as soon as he was able to render any duty, he accepted a position in the commissary department at Richmond, where he remained on duty until the close of the war. He has made his home in Virginia since then, with the exception of eight years spent in the State of Missouri. In June, 1881, he located at Newport News and was given a responsible position in the service of the Chesapeake & Ohio railroad company, which he still holds. He was one of the early victims of the war and his service at the front was consequently brief, but it was distinguished by the bravery and devotion of a true Confederate soldier. Hiram W. Godsey, a brother of the foregoing, born in Chesterfield county, entered the service in April, 1861, as a member of a company organized eight years previous, which was mustered in as Company D of the Fourteenth Virginia infantry, and served in Armistead's brigade of Pickett's division, Longstreet's corps. He shared in the operations of his command up to and including the Pennsylvania campaign. In the fatal assault of his division upon the Federal lines at Gettysburg he did the duty of a devoted soldier. Only eight of his company returned alive to the Confederate lines, and his body, left on the battlefield, now reposes in an unknown grave somewhere on the green hillsides about the little Pennsylvania village.

Garrett G. Gooch, a prominent citizen of Staunton, Va., was born in Orange county in 1837. He was reared and educated in Louisa county, and, during the administration of President Buchanan, was appointed a mail agent on the old Virginia Central railroad. He held this position at the outbreak of the war, but abandoned it to share the perils and the honor of the military defense of the State. He enlisted as a private in the Thirteenth Virginia regiment of infantry at Winchester, in June, 1861, and served with that command about one year, participating creditably in the first battle of Manassas. He was then detailed to the mail service of the Confederate States, the government being in need of experienced men in that important duty. He remained in the mail service until the close of the war when he was paroled by Federal authority. At the close of hostilities he embarked in the mercantile business on an extensive scale, conducting ten stores in Virginia and West Virginia, and conducted this business with