John V. Woodson

He was a lawyer at Jonesboro in Clayton County, GA by May 1859. He enlisted on 1 August 1861 in Covington, Newton County, GA and mustered as 3rd Corporal of Company A of the Infantry Battalion, Cobb's Legion, and was promoted to First Corporal by September 1862.

He was captured in action at Crampton's Gap on South Mountain on 14 September 1862.

He was sent from Fort Delaware to Aikens' Landing, VA on 6 October for exchange and formally exchanged on 10 November 1862. He was appointed Ordnance Sergeant of the battalion on 1 March 1863. He was in Richmond, VA hospitals, ill, in June and July 1864, then home on furlough, with no later military record found.

An 1891 news piece suggests he was a prisoner of war at Johnson's Island, OH for "a long time."

By 1870 and to at least 1880 he was an attorney practicing in Covington, GA with offices in the courthouse.

About 3:00 o'clock this morning [17 January 1891] the house of Mr. John R. Davis was destroyed by fire and one of its occupants, Mr. John V. Woodson perished in the flames.

Mr. Woodson was paralyzed several years ago and since that time has been able to walk only with great difficulty. He was occupying an upstairs room and his helpless condition prevented him from escaping from the burning building. He was the first person who discovered that the house was burning and his cries for help awoke Mrs. Davis who was sleeping in one of the lower rooms. She awoke her husband who was old and feeble and managed to get him out of the house through a window. Her cries awoke a negro, Irwin Godfrey, who was sleeping in a room in the back part of the house and he escaped just before his room was burned. After saving her husband, Mrs. Davis started upstairs to try and rescue Mr. Woodson but the fire had made such progress that all communication with his room was cut off and it was enveloped in flames. About that time Mr. John Peek reached the house but found that he could do nothing for Mr. Woodson whose cries had ceased and who was then doubtless dead. His body was almost entirely consumed by the flames and only a few fragments of bone and flesh were recovered from from the ashes of the burnt building.

His service from his Compiled Service Records,1 online from fold3. The reference to Johnson's Island is in the (Covington) Georgia Enterprise of 18 June 1891. Personal details from family genealogists, a piece in the Atlanta Weekly Intelligencer of 2 June 1859, and the US Census of 1870 & 1880. His gravesite is on Findagrave, source also of the quote about his death, from the Atlanta Constitution of 17 January 1891.

He married Mary E Spencer (1850-1925) in July 1866 and they had 5 children.

1839; Rockingham County, NC

01/17/1891; Covington, GA; burial in Covington Confederate Cemetery, Covington, GA