George Henry Gordon | |
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Brig. Gen. George H. Gordon
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Born |
Charlestown, Massachusetts |
July 19, 1823
Died | August 30, 1886 Framingham, Massachusetts |
(aged 63)
Place of burial | Framingham Centre, Framingham, Massachusetts |
Allegiance |
United States of America Union |
Service/branch |
United States Army Union Army |
Years of service | 1846–1854, 1861–1865 |
Rank |
Brigadier General Brevet Major General |
Battles/wars | American Civil War |
George Henry Gordon (July 19, 1823 – August 30, 1886) was an American lawyer and a Union general in the American Civil War.
Gordon was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts. He moved to Framingham, Massachusetts, at the age of five with his widowed mother. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1846, 43rd in a class of 59 cadets. He served under Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott in the Mexican-American War, earning the brevet of first lieutenant for gallantry at Cerro Gordo. He resigned from the army in 1854. After taking a course in the Harvard Law School, he practiced law in Boston.
When the Civil War erupted in 1861, Gordon organized and became colonel of the 2nd Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. The regiment served guarding the upper Potomac River and Frederick, Maryland, and in the spring of 1862, Gordon served under Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks, unsuccessfully opposing Maj. Gen. Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley. Gordon was appointed a brigadier general of volunteers on June 12, 1862, to rank from June 9, 1862.