George Gordon (Civil War general)

Gordon was born on October 5, 1836 in Pulaski, Tennessee. His father was Andrew Gordon and his mother, Eliza K. Gordon. He grew up in Mississippi and Texas. Gordon graduated from the Western Military Institute in Nashville, Tennessee in 1859. He worked on the Nashville & Northwestern Railway.[1]

At the start of the Civil War, Gordon enlisted in the military service of the Confederacy and became drillmaster of the 11th Regiment, Tennessee Infantry. In November 1862 he became the regiment's colonel. Gordon was promoted to brigadier general in August 1864, and was one of the youngest Confederate generals.[2] Gordon led Vaughn's Brigade, in Maj. Gen. John C. Brown's division, at the Battle of Franklin (November 30, 1864), where he was wounded and captured. Many of the men he led are buried at McGavock Confederate Cemetery in Franklin, Tennessee. Gordon was sent to the prisoner-of-war camp at Fort Warren until he was paroled in the summer of 1865.[3]

After the war, Gordon studied law at Cumberland University, was admitted to the bar, and practiced in Memphis, Tennessee, until 1883.[3] He was appointed one of the railroad commissioners of Tennessee. He received an appointment in the Department of the Interior in 1885, as special Indian agent in Arizona and Nevada, and he served until 1889. He returned to Memphis, Tennessee and resumed the practice of law. He was the superintendent of Memphis city schools between 1889 and 1907.[1]

• List of American Civil War generals (Confederate)
• List of United States Congress members who died in office (1900–49)

• Allison, John. Notable Men of Tennessee. Personal and Genealogical With Portraits. Volume 2. Atlanta: Southern Historical Association, 1905. Retrieved January 14, 2016.
• Cheathem, Mark R., and Emily J. Taylor. “Confederate General George Washington Gordon and the Ku Klux Klan.” West Tennessee Historical Society Papers 67 (2013): 36-57.
• Eicher, John H., and David J. Eicher, Civil War High Commands. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. ISBN 978-0-8047-3641-1.
• History of 11th Tennessee Infantry Regiment (Confederate), American Civil War
• Horn, Stanley F. Invisible Empire: The Story of the Ku Klux Klan from 1866 to 1871, Patterson Smith Publishing Corporation: Montclair, NJ, 1939.
• Hubbard, John Milton, Notes of a Private. By John Milton Hubbard, Company E, 7th Tennessee Regiment. Forrest's Cavalry Corps, C.S.A..
• Martinez, James Michael, Carpetbaggers, Cavalry, and the Ku Klux Klan, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007, ISBN 978-0-7425-5078-0, p. 15. Retrieved June 20, 2009
• Sifakis, Stewart. Who Was Who in the Civil War. New York: Facts On File, 1988. ISBN 978-0-8160-1055-4.
• Warner, Ezra J. Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959. ISBN 978-0-8071-0823-9.
• United States Congress. "George Gordon (id: G000310)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved on 2008-10-13
• George W. Gordon, late a representative from Tennessee, Memorial addresses delivered in the House of Representatives and Senate frontispiece 1913

• "George Gordon". Find a Grave. Retrieved 2008-10-13.
• Political Graveyard