Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/960

896 Pines, and two companies manned the heavy guns at Drewry's Bluff which repulsed the attack of the Federal gunboats Monitor and Galena. The regiment was then assigned to Wise's brigade and served with that command to the end of the war. After the battle of Malvern Hill, Wise's brigade held the Southern line of defenses to the Confederate capital until 1863, when it was assigned to the command of Gen. G. T. Beauregard in South Carolina and served in defense of Charleston and the sea coast until 1864, when General Beauregard and his command were summoned to the defense of Petersburg, Va. Wise's brigade fought and routed the enemy at Stony Creek on the Weldon railroad whilst en route to Petersburg, It fought and won the battles of Port Walthall Junction and Clay's Farm in Chesterfield county, and a series of battles in front of Petersburg (in which Colonel Goode commanded the brigade on and after the 16th of June, General Wise having been placed on detached service), notably the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th of June, and the battle of the Crater, July 30, 1864. The last named was one of the bloodiest battles of the civil war, lasting from 5 o'clock in the morning to 2 o'clock p. m. Wise's brigade was the first command in line immediately on the right of the crater, and, the object of the enemy being to widen the breach so as to march his army in, he concentrated all the fire that could possibly be brought to bear on this command, both infantry and artillery, and the loss was appalling. One-third of the left regiment perished. The brigade commander who remained with that regiment during the day had to have the dead lifted out of the trenches to give room for the living to fight. About 2 o'clock Gen. Bushrod Johnson, the division commander, appeared and directed Colonel Goode to visit the crater and report its condition. He can never forget the sickening scene he witnessed, dead and wounded Confederates and Federals, both white and colored, lying together at the bottom of the pit. General Wise having returned to the brigade, Colonel Goode commanded his regiment in the hotly contested battles of Hatcher's Run and Boydton Plank Road on the 29th and 31st of March, 1865. On the retreat he was engaged in continued fighting, bringing up the rear most of the time. He fought faithfully in the great battle of Sailor's Creek, which lasted from dawn until dark. General Wise was promoted major-general from that battle and Colonel Goode succeeded him as brigadier-general, but, the Confederate authorities being then en route South and the war closing in a few days, they never received their commissions, which they had faithfully won. Their last battle was at Appomattox Court House, when the flags of truce were passing between Generals Grant and Lee. Goode made many hairbreadth escapes and was struck three times, but was never seriously wounded. Since the close of the war he has taken some part in public affairs, representing his county in the legislature of Virginia in 1891-92. He has been twice nominated for Congress since, but declined to run. He is a son of the Hon. William O. Goode, who represented the Fourth Virginia district in Congress for many terms and had just been re-elected at the time of his death.

Colonel Thomas F. Goode, of the Third Virginia cavalry, was born in Roanoke county, Va., in 1827, the son of Thomas Goode, M. D., a prominent physician of that region. He was educated in