Open main menu
Open main menu
T.J. Goree
(1835 - 1905)
Home State: Texas
Education: BaylorCollege, Baylor Law, Class of 1858
Command Billet: Staff Officer, Aide
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: Longstreet's Command
Before Sharpsburg
Born in Alabama, he moved at age 15 with his family to Huntsville,Texas. At 18 he attended Baylor College, from which he graduated with a Law degree. With other partners, he formed a law firm at Montgomery, Texas in 1858, later moving it to Houston.
At the start of War in 1861, he headed for Virginia to volunteer for the Confederacy. Enroute he met Major James Longstreet, just resigned from the US Army. General Longstreet later remembered that trip and their meeting:
"... At Galveston we took a small inland sailing-craft, but were a little apprehensive, as United States ships were reported cruising outside in search of all vessels not flying the Stars and Stripes. Our vessel, however, was only boarded once, and that by a large Spanish mackerel that made a misleap, fell amidships, and served our little company with a pleasant dinner. Aboard this little vessel I first met T. J. Goree, an intelligent, clever Texan, who afterwards joined me at Richmond, and served in faithful duty as my aide-de-camp from Bull Run to Appomattox Court-House. "1
On the Campaign
Goree was aide to MGen Longstreet on the Maryland Campaign. It is likely that he helped serve a gun in Miller's Battery of the Washington Artillery on the morning of 17 September at the Confederate center.
The rest of the War
By War's end, Goree had been made Captain. He saw action on many occasions, and was fortunate to never have been wounded.
After the War
He accompanied Longstreet to Alabama briefly at War's end, then returned to Texas, where he ran a family plantation and practiced Law. In 1873 he was appointed member of the board of directors of the Texas State Prisons, and in 1877 superintendent of the Penitentiary at Huntsville (later Superintendent of Penitentiaries). In 1891 he was general agent for the Birmingham Iron Company, and in 1893 assistant general manager of the Texas Land and Loan Company, Galveston. He died of pneumonia, at age 69, in 1905.
References & notes
Source for sketch above is an article from the Texas Handbook Online.2 Photograph above from US Park Service, Gettysburg NMP, Virtual Tour.
Birth
11/14/1835; Marion, AL
Death
03/05/1905; Galveston, TX; burial in Oakwood Cemetery, Huntsville, TX
1 Longstreet, James, From Manassas to Appomattox: Memoirs of the Civil War in America, Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1895, Ch. 2 [AotW citation 456]
2 Goree, Langston James V and Deborah Bloys Hardin, Goree, Thomas Jewett, Handbook of Texas Online, TSHA, 2001.
Texas State Historical Assn, and University of Texas at Austin, The Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) Online, Published c. 2001, first accessed 01 January 2004, <http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/index.html> [AotW citation 455]