GEORGE COLLIER REMEY
REMEY, GEORGE COLLIER, rear-admiral United States navy, retired, has held all grades of a line officer, from midshipman to rear-admiral, and commander-in-chief of the Asiatic station. He has seen long and varied service. He took an important part in the Civil war, the Spanish war, the Expedition to Peking, China, in 1900, and the insurrection in the Philippines from April, 1900, to March, 1902.
He was born in Burlington, Iowa, August 10, 1841; son of William Butler and Eliza Smith (Howland) Remey. His father was a native of Kentucky; his mother of Vermont, a descendant of the Pilgrim, John Howland, who came to America on the Mayflower and landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts, December, 1620. His father, noted for his integrity, was a merchant, who held the office of county treasurer and recorder. To his mother, her son acknowledges indebtedness for true and elevated views of life, morally and spiritually; and the early environments of home, school and companionship, were among the important guiding influences which served to set an originally strong and reliable character upon lines of heroic development, and enabled him to bring his powers to the support of our Government in its hours of critical need.
He was physically strong in boyhood, and was a "good scholar." Living in a town or city during his youth, he attended public or private schools, until he was appointed in 1855 to the United States naval academy at Annapolis, Maryland, from which institution he was graduated in 1859, and was assigned to the Hartford, East India squadron, 1859-61. Becoming a lieutenant, August 31, 1861, he took part at the siege of Yorktown, and in the operations on the York and Pamunkey rivers, serving on the gunboat Marblehead. He assisted in the siege and blockade of Battery Wagner, during August and September, 1863, holding also the position of commanding officer of the Marblehead for a time. The naval battery on Morris Island was under his command and he participated in the bombardment of Port Sumter, engaging in a night assault on the fort with the second division of boats under his command, on the night of September 8,
