Ida Walimaki Recalls Her Grandfathers’ Daring Exploits In The Civil War
September 15, 1982
By Joe Peterson
Special to the Press
Bull Run, Shiloh, Gettysburgh, Antietam, Andersonville, and Issaquah. And Issaquah? Yes, Issaquah.
The Civil War was long ago, but life-long Issaquah resident Ida Maude Walimaki remembers two of its participants quite well. After all, you don’t forget your grandfathers! Both of her grandfathers, George Tibbets and William Goode, were captured and suffered as POWs in Southern prisons. Not surprisingly, these resettled Issaquah Yankees had a few stories to tell their family about their involvement in America’s bloodiest war.
Both Tibbetts and Goode enlisted in President Abraham Lincoln’s war effort to save the Union. Sergeant Goode’s and Carporal Tibbetts’ military life and especially their time spent as prisoners is well documented. At the tender age of 16, in August 1861, young Tibbetts joined the New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry and spent most of his combat time in South Carolina, where the opening shot of the war was fired.
In 1861, the North’s regular army numbered but 16,000-a force barely able to intercede between Indians and frontiersmen. As a result, Lincoln called on heroic young men to enlist in their state militia, which he promptly federalized. While motivated by the desire to rally around the starspangled banner, the $300 enlistment bonus didn’t dampen partiotic spirits any either.
William Goode in 1865.
For whatever reasons, Tibbetts and 19-year-old Goode of Illinois answered the President’s call to arms – Goode on horseback with the calvary and Tibbetts on foot as an infantryman. While both of Ida’s grandfathers participated in a number of battles (Goode in 31 major encounters), the most interesting aspect of their war years was that both were captured and imprisoned in the South’s most notorious POW camps. Tibbetts was held at Libby and Belle Isle in the Richmond, Virginia area as well as Salisbury, North Carolina. Goode did time at Andersonville and Millen, Georgia.
In the first years of the war, the opposing governments had operated on a system of prisoner exchanges, trading man for man, rank for rank. Unfortunately for Tibbetts and Goode, this system had broken down by the time of their capture in 1864 and the Confederacy was no longer able to feed and clothe its own soldiers, let alone provide for enemy prisoners.
Confined to a former tobacco warehouse called Libby Prison, Tibbetts was one of 1,000 Union soldiers held in just eight rooms! Walimaki remembers her grandfather telling about a time a misguided cat visited the prison grounds only to be eaten on the spot by starved, emaciated young men. So great was the suffering here, that upon viewing the smoldering city of Richmond, President Lincoln ordered the Libby prison left “as a monument.”
Good fared no better as a prisoner in Andersonville – a name synonymous with cruelty in the pages of American history books. In addition to deplorable living conditions resulting from Confederate imprisonment, Union soldiers suffered “the unkindest cut of all,” hoodlum reign by some of their own! Street-wise toughs from New York City, who made a habit of collecting their bonus for enlistment and then disappearing, were held in the Georgia prison as well. Their daylight activities ranged from sneak thievery to blatant robbery. Averaging three murders a night, this gang lived fat while others of the same uniform died from starvation and exposure. To add insult to injury, they were on good terms with the Rebel guards, whom they they bribed.
Goode was instrumental in the hanging of six of these murderers and for his own protection, was removed to an eastern Georgia prison. Unfortunately, he was later discovered by the New York terrorists and nearly beaten to death. Rescued by fellow POW vigilantes, Goode was eventually liberated.
Whether inflicted by blue or gray, the suffering of Andersonville was not to be equalled until World War II. By late summer of 1864, 3,000 Yankee prisoners a month were dying, resulting in a total of 12,884 Union graves at Andersonville by war’s end.
George Tibbetts as a teenager in the early 1860′s
While both of Walimaki’s grandfathers survived the ordeal, Tibbett’s health was deemed “impaired” due to hardship and exposure. He was urged to go west for a change of scene after being “mustered out” in 1865. This he did, eventually ending up in Squak Valley (Issaquah) in 1871. Goode too, “discovered” the Squak Valley and it was the marriage of Goode’s and Tibbetts children that resulted in the two former POWs having more in common than un uncannily similar war record. record.
Both Tibbetts and Goode played significant roles in the early history of the Issaquah area. Tibbetts even helped author the Washington State constitution and served as a legislator. It’s not by chance that we have a Tibbetts’ Creek, N.W. Goode Place, and Goode’s Corner today.
