• General Notes

  REFERENCE: 2030 Va Cou
  Col. Jones was born in Macon, Georgia, November 26, 1844. In his infancy
  his parents removed to Montgomery, which has since been his home. At the
  outbreak of the war he was a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute,
  and was ordered with other cadets, to Richmond to drill the volunteers
  there.
  In 1862 he served in Jackson's celebrated valley campaign, and at its
  conclusion enlisted in the cavalry. Gen. Jackson, who as a professor at
  the Institute, had known young Jones as a cadet, gave him a
  recommendation for appointment in the regular army. Upon this Gen. John
  B. Gordon appointed young Jones as his Aide-de-Camp. He served on Gen.
  Gordon's staff during the remainder of the war, being twice promoted and
  several times wounded.
  For "gallant conduct at Bristoe" he was commended in orders and
  personally thanked by Gen. Robert E. Lee. The same officer sent his
  thanks to the brave young Alabamian for his services at Hare's Hill,
  where, in the presence of Gen. Lee, young Jones volunteered  to cross the
  space between the works of the two armies, which was plowed by a terrific
  fire of cannon and small arms, to bear Gordon's order for the withdrawal
  of his troops from the positions they had captured.
  He was in the last action at Appomattox, and bore one of the flags of
  truce sent into the enemies' lines just before the surrender.
  Gen. Gordon says of him:
  "He was an invaluable officer, and young as he was, gave evidence of high
  military talent. He was assigned to my staff when a beardless boy, and
  was with me in whatever trials I experinced myself during the war. He
  never failed to discharge his duty, not only willingly, but gladly,
  whatever may be the promised cost. I may truthfully say, without one
  particular of exaggeration, that if the facts connected with his services
  in the Confederate army were written out it would furnish as thrilling a
  romance as one ever read."
  At the close of the war he returned home and engaged in planting and at
  the same time read law in the office of the late John A. Elmore, and
  afterwards under the direction of his near neighbor and friend, the late
  Chief Justice A. J. Walker. He was admitted to the bar in 1866.
  His planting operations resulted disastrously. He surrendered everything
  to creditors, not even reserving a homestead, and devoted a large share
  of his professional earnings afterwards to paying these debts.
  In 1868 he was one of the editors  of the Daily Picayune, a Democratic
  paper published at Montgomery, and evinced much ability as a writer. In
  1869, he was one of the Democratic nominees for aldermen of the city, but
  was defeated with the rest of the ticket.
  His oration at Montgomery on Memorial Day, 1874, was a classical
  production full of thought and beauty, and at once brought him
  prominently before the country. The press throughout the Union published
  extensive extracts from it, pronouncing them high types of Southern
  oratory and feeling. The earnest and thoughtful words of the young
  Confederate, who would not wrong the cause by arguing its rights, and yet
  hoped that "something higher and nobler would rise from the graves of all
  our heroic dead than a sectional vendetta between the North and the
  South," created a profound impression at the North; and were not the
  least among the happy causes which combined in 1874, to check the further
  tide of vindictiveness against the Southern people.
  He was one of Gov. Houston's military staff in 1874, but resigned in 1876
  to accept the Captaincy of the Montgomery Greys. He resigned the command
  of the Greys in 1880 to accept the colonelcy of the Second Regiment of
  State troops, which office he still holds. This regiment is one of the
  best in the country, and in morale, discipline, and manly deportment is
  excelled by none.  On several occassions portions of it have been ordered
  out under his command to suppress lawlessness, an

Details of Colonel Thomas Goode's family with Gena C. Bird