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The Green Bag

opened an olﬁce for the practice of his profession in Charlottesville, Virginia,

Conventions of the Seventh District he received the almost unanimous vote for

and in 1870 was elected Commonwealth's Attorney for that county, which position

in the Seventh District, and each time

he ﬁlled for nearly forty-one years with out having had opposition for the nomi

nation since 1873. The office of Com monwealth's Attorney; for Albemarle

Congress of all of the Eastern Counties failed of nomination by only a few votes. In 1881 he was elected captain of the Monticello Guard at Charlottesville, and

County for over sixty years, up to the

commanded that famous old company at

time of Captain Woods’ death, has been held by only three lawyers, all of them highly distinguished in the profession: Judge William J. Robertson held the

the Yorktown celebration in October,

oﬁ‘ice from 1850 up to his election to the

Supreme Court Bench in 1858. Colonel R. T. W. Duke was then elected and held the oﬁice until he was elected to Congress in 1870. Captain Woods was then elected and held the oﬁice up to the day of his death, his successor by appointment being Judge R. T. W. Duke, Jr., the second son of Col. R. T.

W. Duke. In 1872 Captain Woods was made a

member of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia, a position which he held for four years, having been at the time of his appointment the youngest member of that Board ever elected.

In politics he was a Democrat. He was Chairman of the Democratic party of Albemarle County for several years, and as elector represented the Seventh Congressional District of Virginia, and

also was a member of the Presidential Electoral Board in 1888, which cast the

vote of Virginia for Cleveland for Presi dent. He was permanent Chairman of the Virginia Democratic State Conven

tion which met in Staunton in 1896 to elect delegates to the National Conven tion. In two Democratic Congressional

1881. In 1893 he was made Brigadier General of the Second Brigade of Virginia Confederate Veterans, which position he held until 1901, when he declined re election.

Captain Woods was elected President of the Virginia State Bar Association on August 5, 1908, and his address delivered at the meeting in 1909 upon “The Neces

sity for General Culture in the Training of a Lawyer," was very able and elo quent. ~ Captain Woods as a lawyer was noted for peculiar painstaking accuracy in the

preparation of his papers.

As an advo

cate he was able, zealous and earnest, and as Commonwealth's Attorney, whilst fair and just, he was a terror to the evil

doers brought to the bar of justice. He was a man of exceedingly hand some presence, genial, aﬁable and very

popular, both with the profession and the public at large. Captain Woods was married in 1874 to Miss Matilda Minor Morris and had ﬁve children, E. Morris, Sallie Stuart, now the wife of James Rucker, Maude Coleman, a noted Virginia beauty, who died in 1901, Mary Watts, who inter married with Dr. Frank Lupton of Bir mingham, Ala., and Miss Letty Page Woods.