Ancestor Spotlight: Aaron Bradshaw Goodwill

 I can’t tell you how much I love, how beautiful of an escape it is for me, to walk the trails my ancestors have left for me. To research them is to research myself and truly learn more about who I am. Their stories have informed my own and I love to see these connections. I wish I had more to write about in this interim, but I’m excited to slowly explore people and subject. I know the first few weeks I dropped a lot of info, but I’d collected that information years ago. Now I’m collecting new information and forming new ideas, so it’s going to take a little longer. I hope you’ll forgive the long pauses between posts, but I promise to try to make it worth the wait.

I have someone new to introduce to you today. I hadn’t known he’d existed till a few years ago, and I decided to delve into who he was and his story. Aaron Bradshaw Goodwill is my 3x great grandfather and he’d enlisted in the Civil War and died while in service. I hadn’t thought to look into his regiment or his activities until today and here is what I found…

Aaron Bradshaw Goodwill was born March 27, 1837. His father, whose name was also Aaron, was a cooper and from Massachusetts. He had several siblings who all had dope names like Omri, Justice, and Osker. He married his wife Mary sometime near 1857 or 8 as my 2x great-grandfather, Perry, was born in 1858. In February of 1964, near the end of the Civil War, he enlisted in the 111th Pennsylvania Infantry. 

Monument to the 111th
PA Infantry, Gettysburg

According to the Wikipedia page about this regiment, “The 111th was recruited in the counties of Erie, Warren and Crawford and its organization was completed at Erie on Jan. 24, 1862, when it was mustered in for three years' service.” The 111th were present at multiple Civil War battles, including some that were rather close to home for many of my family in Tennessee, and to me as I live in Virginia. They were present at Gettysburg, Antietam,and the entire Chattanooga Campaign including Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, and Ringgold Gap.

Cave Hill Cemetery Louisville, KY
(📷: Millie Farmer)

When Aaron volunteered, he would have been on the way to Chattanooga, and then later Atlanta, both of which areas now are home to the majority of my Goodwill extended family. Aaron never made it further south than Louisville, Kentucky. He enlisted in February and had passed by July, having died from chronic dysentery over 450 miles from his home, at Brown General Hospital. He’s buried in Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville. He was only 27 years old. 

Back home in Pennsylvania, his wife was left to raise her son Peter, or Perry as he was known, on her own. In 1865 Mary was in New York, living with her parents, having left Perry and any siblings, I imagine, with his grandparents in Crawford, PA. Mary later remarried a man named Andrew Smith and they had several children together.

Mary Goodwill Smith and her
second husband Andrew Smith

I hadn’t known I’d had any Goodwill relatives in the Civil War, but here he is. He never saw battle, but he volunteered to fight. I’m glad to find him on the right side of history, however brief his involvement. May he rest peacefully.