George Stoneman

Stoneman, George (1822–94) Union army officer and state governor, born in western New York. Stoneman fought in the Mexican War (1846–48). He led the first cavalry troop to reach Washington, D.C., when the Civil War erupted and served with Gen. George B. McClellan in Virginia in the summer of 1861 but transferred to the infantry in 1862. Stoneman received several promotions and, as a major general, commanded an infantry company at Fredericksburg in 1862. He took some of the blame for the Union defeat at Chancellorsville (1863) because of his failure to cut the rail lines linking Gen. Robert E. Lee and Richmond in advance of the battle. Stoneman sought to restore his tarnished reputation during Gen. William T. Sherman's Atlanta campaign, but his effort to free Union prisoners at a camp in Georgia was a dismal failure. In 1871 he moved to California, where he became railroad commissioner and, in 1882, governor.

George Stoneman 1822-94, Union general in the American Civil War, b. Busti, N.Y. As commander of Fort Brown, Tex., in Feb., 1861, he refused to obey the order of General Twiggs to surrender to Texas authorities but evacuated the fort and sailed for the North with part of his command. He was made a brigadier general of volunteers in Aug., 1861, was chief of cavalry in General McClellan's Peninsular campaign (1862), and commanded an infantry corps at Fredericksburg. In 1863, Stoneman made a spectacular but unsuccessful raid to General Lee's rear just before the battle of Chancellorsville. In the Atlanta campaign (1864) he commanded the cavalry of the Army of the Ohio. While making a raid on Andersonville, Ga., he was captured. Exchanged after a three-month imprisonment, he resumed cavalry operations in E Tennessee, W Virginia, and W North Carolina. He retired from the army in 1871 and moved to California. He served as governor of California from 1883 to 1887.

Bibliography: See I. W. Van Noppen, Stoneman's Last Raid (1961).