1856 Oct 23: David Good marries Lydia Beery Engle Stemen (1, p25-26)

1857 Aug 20: Elizabeth
1859 Mar  5: Levi
1860 Dec  7: Simon
1863 Jun  1: Matilda
1865 Feb 15: Hylas
1867 Mar 30: Mary Ann

1860 Jun 11: US Census. David and Lydia are shown living in Rushcreek Twp., Fairfield Co., Ohio. (16) With them are their son Levi, David's children Joel and Sarah, and Lydia's children Maria Engle, and Margaret and Abraham Stemen.

?? Where was David? The 1840 census says he was in Rush Creek Twp. of Fairfield Co. In 1850 the census shows him in Marion Twp. of Hocking Co., and in 1860, he is back in Fairfield Co. again. This probably was a changing county boundary rather than David actually moving, but this needs to be confirmed. -- dg 2009 May 19

US Civil War

1861 Apr 12: The war begins with the Confederate army taking Ft. Sumter at Charleston, South Carolina.

David and his son Joel are our Good ancestors who were adults during the US Civil War. During the war years (1861-1865), they both lived in Fairfield Co. in the Union state of Ohio. David's cousin Abraham P. Good and probably other relatives still lived in the Shenandoah Valley in the Confederate state of Virginia where David was born. At the outbreak of the war, David was 51, and Joel was 26.

Future Union Army Generals Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, William T. Sherman, and Philip H. Sheridan all lived within about 160 miles of Bremen. I have no evidence that either David or Joel ever met or dealt with any of these men, but they were distant neighbors.

President Grant was the most distant. He was born and lived from about 1822 to 1836 in Point Pleasant in southwestern Ohio about 160 miles southwest Bremen. He took command of the Union army in 1864.

In the fall of 1864, to reduce the food supply to the Confederacy, Grant ordered the destruction or confiscation of crops and livestock in the Shenandoah Valley. David came with his parents from the Shenandoah Valley in 1811, and it still was the home of many relatives of the Good and Beery families. Heatwole's account of the burning of the valley (17) contains many familiar names. Grant accepted Lee's surrender on April 9, 1865, and became president in 1869, about six months after David died.

General Sheridan lived in Somerset about ten miles northeast of Bremen. He was the one Grant chose to execute his orders to reduce the food supply from the Shenandoah Valley, and under Sheridan's command was the "boy general" George Armstrong Custer.

General Sherman lived in Lancaster, about ten miles west of Bremen. He lived there until he left to attend West Point.

President Hayes was born in 1822 and spent his boyhood years in Delaware, Ohio, about 70 miles northwest of Bremen. Hayes rose from major to general during the war and became president in 1876.