John Goodson English was born on April 30, 1807, either in Tennessee or Virginia. According to an early biographer, he moved to Mississippi around 1825 and “traded with the Indians.” He married Mary Elizabeth Mosely on August 13, 1834, and their daughter Mary was born around 1835. His wife died in 1841, and he married Margaret King on September 16, 1846. They had at least seven children: James, born around 1846; Margaret, born around 1848; John, born around 1852; Sallie, born around 1854; Fannie, born around 1857; Jennie, born around 1861; and Chalmers, born around 1864.

 

They lived in Aberdeen, Mississippi, and he worked as a planter. By 1860, he owned $65,780 of real estate and $152,570 of personal property. He enslaved at least 150 people. He applied for a presidential pardon in August 1865, insisting that he had “never held or aspired to any political or military office [or] taken any part in politics beyond the exercise of the right of suffrage.” He claimed that he “contributed to [the Confederate cause] only in the manner required by the then existing laws of the state and country.” President Andrew Johnson pardoned him the following month.

 

He remained in Aberdeen after the war and continued working as a farmer. He died in Egypt, Mississippi, March 8, 1887.

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