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 The Green Bag May, 1911

Volume XXIII

Number 5

Captain Micaj ah Woods BY R. T. W. DUKE, JR.‘

HE death of Capt. Micajah Woods, which occurred on the 14th day of March, 1911, removes from the Virginia

Bar one of its best known and most distinguished members. Captain Woods was born in Albemarle County, Vir ginia, at Holkham, on the 17th day of

May, 1844. His father, Dr. John Rodes Woods, was for many years considered the leading authority upon stock-raising in Virginia, and his mother was Miss Sabina Lewis Stuart Creigh.

On both

sides of his family he is descended from Scotch-Irish ancestry. His ﬁrst Ameri can progenitor, Michael Woods, re ceived a patent to a large tract of land from George II in 1737, in the western part of Albemarle County, which was then Goochland County. The wife of this Michael was Mary Campbell, who

belonged to the clan of which the Duke of Argyle was the head. William Woods, the great-grandfather of Micajah Woods,

His early education was obtained at the Lewisburg Academy, the Military School of Charlottesville taught by Col. John Bowie Strange, and at the Bloom

ﬁeld Academy, taught by Messrs. Broun and Tebbs. In 1861 he entered the University of Virginia, and like many of the other young men of the South,

was soon a member of the Confederate Army. 'He ﬁrst served when barely seventeen years of age as volunteer aide on the staff of Gen. John B. Floyd, in the West Virginia campaign of 1861,

and then in 1862 as a private in the Albemarle Light Horse Company, in the Second Regiment Virginia Cavalry, and afterwards was ﬁrst lieutenant in the Virginia state line. In May, 1863,

he was elected and commissioned ﬁrst lieutenant in Jackson's Battery of Horse Artillery, Army of Northern Virginia, in which capacity he served until the close of the War.

Among the battles

was a member from Albemarle County

in which he participated were Carnifax

of the Legislature of Virginia in 1798

Ferry, Port Republic, Second Cold Har bour, New Market, Second Manasses,

and 1799, and his son Micajah was a member of the Albemarle County Court

Sharpsburg, Winchester, Fisher's Hill

from 1815 to 1837, and was High Sheriff

and Gettysburg.

of the County, ex oﬂicio, at the time of

his death.

Through his mother he was

descended

from

At the close of the war he returned to

Stuart,

the University, where he studied in the Academic Department for one year,

County Lieutenant of Augusta County,

and then studied law, being graduated

from 1755 on for several years.

therefrom in 1868 with the degree of Bachelor of Law. He immediately

' Of Charlottesville. Va.

Col.

David