Jane Yates Smith Goelet

(Washington County)

Featured Character – The Home Front


W.H. Rogers and Edward Buncombe Goelet

Courtesy of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Southern Historical Collection, Goelet/Buncombe Papers #1112A and Chris Barber


John Edward Buncombe and Jane Yates Smith had six children, three of which served in the Civil War.  The Goelets lived at Buncombe Hall in Washington County on Kendricks Creek.
John "Bunk" or "Jack" Buncombe Goelet was born in 1836 and enlisted in the 3rd Alabama Infantry during the Civil War.  He died of wounds received at the Battle of Malvern Hill, Virginia in 1862. 

Edward Buncombe Goelet was born in 1840 and enlisted in 1861 at Union City, Tennessee into Mallett’s Battalion, North Carolina Camp Guards. He was later transferred to the 10th Battalion North Carolina Heavy Artillery and then to the Acting Adjutant in the Artillery Corp of the Army of Tennessee. In an 1863 letter home to his mother and sister, Edward wrote of the Battle of Murfreesboro, Tennessee while he served with Cheatham’s Division of the Army of Tennessee. 

Francis “Frank” Heath Goelet joined the Confederate Army in 1864 in Mississippi.  He was a part of Fenner’s Battery, Smith’s Brigade Artillery from Louisiana.  Frank was paroled in 1865 at the age of 19.