Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/957

Rh much success from 1868 until 1882, when he made his home at Staunton, and for five years conducted a wholesale grocery business. Since retiring from that activity he has been engaged as a railroad contractor. In 1872 Mr. Gooch was married in Alleghany county to Mary W., daughter of the late Dr. George H. Payne.

John Goode, a Virginian, whose name is prominently associated with public events before, during and since the war of the Confederacy, was born in Bedford county, May 27, 1829. His father, John Goode, was a prosperous planter and a soldier in the war of 1812. His paternal grandfather, Edmund Goode, removed, in colonial days, from Caroline to Bedford county and served in the war of the Revolution. His mother, Ann M. Leftwich, was a daughter of John Leftwich and Sally (Walton) Leftwich, and granddaughter of Joel Leftwich, who served as an officer of the Continental army at Germantown, Brandywine, Camden and Guilford Court House (being severely wounded in the latter battle), and in the war of 1812 commanded a brigade under Gen. William Henry Harrison at Fort Meigs, afterward was promoted major-general, and, during several sessions, sat in the Virginia legislature. Mr. Goode was educated at the New London academy in Bedford county and at Emory and Henry college, where he was graduated in June, 1848. During the two succeeding winters he studied law with Hon. John W. Brockenbrough, at Lexington, was admitted to the bar in April, 1851, and began the practice of his profession at Liberty, the seat of his native county. At the age of twenty-two he was elected to the house of delegates; in 1852 and 1856 was a presidential elector on the Democratic ticket and in 1861 was a member of the Virginia convention, where he earnestly advocated the secession of Virginia, after Northern troops had been called out to coerce the previously seceding States. On May 1, in earnest of his views regarding the duty of the State, he enlisted as a private in the first company that left Bedford county for active service; mustered in as Company A of the Second Virginia cavalry, and as such participated in the first battle of Manassas. He was subsequently assigned to duty, on the staff of Gen. Jubal A. Early, as volunteer aide-de-camp with the rank of captain. In the fall of 1861 he was elected to the congress of the Confederate States, and on February 22, 1862, took his seat in that body, which he continued to hold, by re-election, until the close of the war. During the recess of 1862 he rejoined General Early, as volunteer aide, and in that capacity served in the battle of Malvern Hill, also during the campaign against General Hunter in 1864. In September, 1865, he removed to Norfolk for the practice of his profession and was there elected to the Virginia legislature of 1866-67. In 1874 he was elected representative in Congress from the Norfolk district and served in the Forty-fourth and, by re-election, in the Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth Congresses. In his candidacy for the Forty-seventh Congress he was defeated on account of his opposition to the proposed "readjustment" of the State debt. As a member of the Forty-sixth Congress he was the author of the bill providing for the erection of a monument at Yorktown in commemoration of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis to the allied armies of Washington and Lafayette. He was also president of the Yorktown centennial association. During the Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth Congresses he was chairman of the committee on education. He has