DOB:  1847 DOD:  May 9, 1923 Comments: George was born in 1847 in Tennessee and by his own account lived there his whole life except during the war.  His master was Christopher C. McEwen of Maury County.  In census records he is listed as being Mulatto, or mixed race, but it is not certain if Christopher is his father.  George applied for a Confederate pension in 1921 and states he joined the army in Murfreesboro and served his master’s son John F. McEwen in Co. H of the 1st Tennessee.  This puts George joining in the Fall of 1862, the year he would have turned 15 years old.  John’s daughter vouched for George on his application stating George cooked and acted as a body servant to John until the end of the war, and this was well known by anyone who knew her father.  George by his own account states that he stayed with John until the surrender in 1865.  He made his way to Nashville and then the two of them rode home to Columbia on a freight train.  This goes along with other accounts from the 1st Tennessee soldiers who surrendered in North Carolina, who state the regiment made its way to Nashville then split up and returned to their respective homes. After the war, George married Rebecca Akin on January 6, 1870.  The couple never had children.  George worked as a life long blacksmith and, at least by the time of her death, Rebecca worked as a cook.  Sometime after 1870, George and Rebecca moved to Nashville.  The city directories show they moved a few times but he spent a fair amount of time living at 438 McLemore and 447 8th Ave N.  Rebecca died of paralysis in 1916 and by 1920 George had moved in with his sister’s family at 409 Polk’s Alley in Nashville.  In 1921, George applied for a Confederate pension and two members of Co. H and his former master’s daughter all vouched for his service.  On May 9, 1923, George died suddenly of cerebral hemorrhage.  He and Rebecca are both buried in Mt. Ararat Cemetery in Nashville based on their death certificates.  They are presumably not marked because neither ever shows up in cemetery surveys. 

August 3, 1923 edition of the Tennessean stating George had been dropped from the rolls of the pension office due to his death.  He listed with fellow 1st Tennessee body servant Osborne Cunningham.  Both names are listed in the right column.