The Diaries of Ralph Leland Goodrich, 1859-1867

June 7, 1866

Been sick about a week. Got knocked down & stabbed one night last week. Stabbed through the cheek. Lately I have received from home 275 dollars and I have nothing of it. I intend to keep up my journal now.

June 8, 1866

It has been a week tonight since I got stabbed. Felt better today but I think my face is swelling again.

June 9, 1866

My face is swelling again.

[Editors Note:  There were no more entries in Goodrich's diary during the remaining days of June 1866. However, there is a letter (Item Number 82) in the Goodrich Collection that suggests Goodrich and a colleague of the 6th Arkansas Infantry, Company A, Benjamin Alfott Winfrey hoped to establish a school in Fort Worth TX. The item is only a copy of the letter that was sent -- if it was sent at all -- but gives some notion about Goodrich's plans to resume teaching. The letter contains some significant exaggerations of Goodrich's teaching experiences and credentials, as well as a bold-face lie about his military service in the Confederate army. Winfrey, on the other hand, did serve from June 1861 until he was placed on the invalid list in February 1865. Company records show that he was captured at Vicksburg, paroled and exchanged in January 1863, and wounded in November 1863. Just prior to the war, however, the 21 year-old Winfrey was working as a store clerk in Van Buren, Crawford County, AR for Sutton F. Cottrell. He does not appear to be teaching school. The letter appears below. ]

Little Rock [Arkansas]
June 21, 1866

To the Trustees of Fort Worth Institute
Capt. J. G. Fletcher

Gentlemen,
We design to establish a first class school in your city about the first week in September next if you can give us any encouragement in so doing. One having been a teacher in, and principle of high schools in the South for the last ten years, and the other a teacher of common schools and city select schools for several years in this State. They hope to fulfill your requirements. Our course of studies will embrace Latin & Greek, French, Spanish & German, the higher Mathematics & the Common English branches, together if necessary Engineering & Military tactics. Both have favorable recommendations from people with whom they have been associated while teaching.

Since the commencement of the war, we have not followed our old vocation. Gentlemen, if it will add anything to your opinion & exertions in our favor, we state that we have been in the Confederate Army from the beginning of the war until the cessation of hostilities last summer. Hoping, Gentlemen, to receive a favorable answer from you. And if you desire, you can refer to old citizens of this place [such as] General W[illiam] E. Ashley, Mr. S. H. Tucker, W. [B.] Wait, W[illiam]. Woodruff, & others. We remain,

Yours respectfully, --    R. L. Goodrich, M.A., and B. A. Winfrey.

The Ralph Goodrich Collection is the property of the Arkansas History Commission.