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. Nothing to do as yet.
It
has been a week tonight since I got stabbed. Felt better today but I think my
face is swelling again.
Reading. Nothing new.
Doing
some writing for Cole. At home all day. My
face is swelling up again. reading & writing some. Mick Egan here. He has
been sick & looks badly.
[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.
