TSHA | Gould, Nicholas C.

Nicholas C. Gould, lawyer and Confederate cavalry officer, was born in Rhode Island, perhaps South Kingston, around 1835. He may have been the son of Nicholas Gould of South Kingston. Details of his early life are at best sketchy. He may have been born Nehemiah Gould and been a postmaster/bookseller in Titus County, Texas. By 1860 Gould practiced law in Clarksville, Texas. There he married Virginia E. Harris (1836–82), whose sister America married John A. Corley, Gould’s fellow field officer in the Twenty-third Texas Cavalry.

When the Civil War broke out Gould raised the “Clarksville Light Infantry,” a state army outfit. In September he raised a cavalry company in Clarksville, which joined Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Tennessee Cavalry regiment. His company was captured at Fort Donelson in February, 1862, and he was sent back to Texas to recruit a battalion. He raised his own regiment, the Twenty-third Texas Cavalry, and served as colonel. He and his men fought in Louisiana as part of the Trans-Mississippi Department. Opinion of Gould as an officer varied. He was acknowledged to be brave and active but his district commander found him an alcoholic. Gould’s regiment suffered many desertions, and was dismounted in 1865.

After the war, Gould returned to Clarksville where he died on August 20, 1866. He is buried in the Clarksville Cemetery next to Lt. Col. John A. Corley.

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Gould, Nicholas C. (ca. 1835–1866)

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