GEORGE WHITEFIELD DAVIS
DAVIS, GEORGE WHITEFIELD, soldier in the United States volunteer army in the Civil war, 1861-65, receiving promotion from sergeant to major, U. S. V.; in the United States regular army, 1865-1905; receiving promotion from captain to major-general, U. S. A.; and in the United States volunteer army in the Spanish-American war, 1898-1900 with the rank of brigadier-general and major-general, U. S. V.; was born in Thompson, Windham county, Connecticut, July 26, 1839. His father, Deacon George Davis was a farmer, an antislavery man noted for industry and persistence; and his mother, Elizabeth Grow, was the daughter of the Reverend James and Elizabeth Edmunds Grow and a woman of much intellectual force. His first paternal ancestor in America, Robert Davis, came to Providence Plantations about 1670; and his maternal ancestor, John Grow, to Ipswich, Massachusetts Bay colony, 1664.
George W. Davis assisted his father in the farm work, attended the district school winters, and studied at home nights. When eighteen years old he began to teach a district school, following that vocation for three winters and continuing to work in the summer for his father. He attended the Nichols academy, Dudley, Massachusetts, two fall terms, and the Connecticut normal school. New Britain, one term; but he was not graduated. In 1860 he was a tutor in a family in southern Georgia. When the Civil war broke out, he left Savannah in September, 1861, and after a long and difficult journey through Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky, then the scene of active military operations, he reached home. While in Atlanta he was arrested as a Northern spy and he secured his release through the good offices of a fellow traveler, General John E. Ward, United States Minister to China, who was himself making his way to Canada to join his family in Italy. Mr. Ward was a law partner of the mayor of Savannah with a pass from the Mayor and he vouched for his fellow traveler. Young Davis enlisted in the 11th Connecticut volunteer infantry, was made quartermaster's sergeant, and accompanied his
