Brigadier General George Sears Greene, Commander, 3d Brigade, 2d Division, Union XIV Corps
“GREENE, George Sears, soldier, b. in Apponaug, Warwick, R. I., 6 May, 1801. He is a descendant in the sixth generation from John Greene, deputy governor of Rhode Island, whose father, John, came from Salisbury, England, in 1635, and settled in Warwick, R. I., in 1645. George Sears was graduated at the U. S. military academy in 1823, second in his class. He served in various garrisons and as instructor at West Point until 1836, when he left the army and became a civil engineer, building many railroads in the states of Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Maryland, and Virginia. In 1856 he served in the Croton aqueduct department in the city of New York. He designed and built the reservoir in Central park, and the enlargement of High Bridge. He re-entered the army in 1862 as colonel of the 60th New York regiment, and was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers, 28 April, 1862. He commanded his brigade at Cedar Mountain, 9 Aug., 1862, and was in command of the 2d division of the 12th army corps in the battle of Antietam. He also led his brigade at the battle of Chancellorsville. At Gettysburg, on the night of 2 July, 1863, with a part of his brigade, he held the right wing of the Army of the Potomac at Culp's Hill against more than a division of Confederate troops, thereby averting a disaster which would have resulted from turning the right wing of the army. He was transferred to the western armies in September, 1863, and in a night engagement at Wauhatchie, near Chattanooga. 28 Oct., 1863, was dangerously wounded in the jaw. This wound disabled him from active service till January, 1865, when he rejoined Sherman's army in North Carolina and participated in the engagements preceding Johnston's surrender. He was brevetted major-general of volunteers for his services on 13 March, 1865, and retired from the army in 1866. In 1867 he became chief engineer and commissioner of the Croton aqueduct department, and held the office till 1871, when he was made chief engineer of public works in Washington, D. C., but resigned in 1872. He was president of the American society of civil engineers from 1875 till 1877, and since that date has been engaged as consulting engineer on various works. For several years he was also president of the New York genealogical and biographical society.”
Source: Wilson, James Grant, & Fiske, John (Eds.). Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography. New York: Appleton, 1888, 1915.
General Greene was for a time the oldest living graduate of West Point. He died in Morristown, New Jersey, on January 28, 1899. He is buried in Warwick, Rhode Island.
Cullum, George W., Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy (3 vols.). Boston and New York, 1891.
Greene, George S., Brevet-Major-General, United States Volunteers, "The breastworks at Culp's Hill, II." In Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. 3, Century Magazine, 1887, 317.
New York Monuments Commission for the Battlefields of Gettysburg and Chattanooga. Final Report of the Battlefield of Gettysburg. 3 vols. Albany: J. B. Lyon Company, 1902.
_____. In Memorium, George Sears Greene. Albany: J. B. Lyon Company, 1909.
Pfanz, Harry W. Gettysburg: Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.
U.S. War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. 128 vols. Washington, DC: GPO, 1881-1901. Series 1.
Warner, Ezra J. Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1964.
