Martin Bird Wood

He was a voracious reader from a young age.

His father required his sons to work on the he farm along with the slaves. Martin B. would often slip away and hide to read.

He was wounded in the leg action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.

He was discharged for disability on 3 (or 16) May 1863 and went home. In September 1863 he entered the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) as a Cadet.

He was a member of Co. D of the VMI Corps of Cadets who fought in the Battle of New Market [15 May 1864], but was left with [the] guard detail at the Institute because of his old leg wound.

In 1865 he worked as Deputy to his father, then Scott County Clerk. He studied the law, was admitted to the bar about 1870, and was elected County Clerk in November of that year. He was elected Judge of the County Court (1880-1886). With his brother Henry C. Wood he speculated in real estate in Scott County, but sold his properties and moved to Bristol, TN in 1888, where he ran a wholesale grocery business.

His service from Rankin1 via the Historical Data Systems database. Details from his own bio sketch (1876) in his The Wood Family of Virginia (1892) [online], from Omar Addington's Five Confederates From Pleasant Hill (1979) [online], both from the Scott County Historical Society, and from his roster record from the VMI Archives. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

His name is seen in some records as Martin Birney Wood.

02/25/1845; near Estillville (now Gate City), VA

11/17/1908; Bristol, TN; burial in Caldwell-Wood Cemetery, Bristol, TN