In his late teens Goff was apprenticed to learn the trade of carriage maker, but after the outbreak of the American Civil War he enlisted in October 1861 at the age of 18 with the 10th Connecticut Regiment Infantry of the Union Army seeing service in the Carolinas, Florida and Virginia.

He spent two months at a military hospital at Fort Monroe, Virginia and upon his release, he was promoted to 1st sergeant and later to 2nd lieutenant.

By 1868 he had moved to Portage, Wisconsin where he practiced his trade of photography, also operating a small gallery in nearby Columbus.

Goff took the last pictures of Custer and his officers and men prior to their engagement at the Battle of the Little Bighorn against Sitting Bull’s allied Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho.

[2] By the mid-1880s Goff sold his business interests to his friend and partner David Francis Barry and eventually moved to Montana.