George Gilmer Grattan

Nephew to former Georgia Governor George R. Gilmer, whose advice he had taken to pursue a legal career in Georgia, he passed the bar and began legal practice in Lexinton, GA in 1860. He enrolled as Jr. 2nd Lieutenant in Company K, 6th Georgia Infantry on 28 May 1861.

In his after-action Report, General Colquitt said of him:

[On South Mountain] My thanks are due to Lieutenant Jordan and Lieutenant [G. G.] Grattan, of my staff, for their assistance this day... [at Sharpsburg] Lieutenant Grattan, my aide-de-camp, was conspicuously bold in the midst of danger and untiring in the discharge of his duties.

Officially appointed Aide de Camp (ADC) to Brigadier General Colquitt in October 1862 to date from 17 September. Promoted to Captain and Assistant Adjutant General on the General's staff on 19 December 1862. He was wounded in action on 3 June 1864 at Cold Harbor, VA and lost a leg to amputation as a result.

He went to Harrisonburg, VA and practiced law there. He was commonwealth's attorney for Rockingham County (1878-83), member of the Virginia House of Delegates (83-85), and elected judge in the County Court (1885-88).

Basic military information from the War Department1 and Fincham2. Details from a sketch in Lyon Gardiner Tyler's Men of Mark in Virginia: Ideals of American Life (Vol. 4, 1908) and family genealogists. His gravesite is on Findagrave. Captain Grattan wrote The Battle of Boonsboro Gap or South Mountain, a speech given in 1910 (a pamphlet now in the Virginia State Library); published also in the Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. 89, April 1914.

02/12/1839; Contentment, Rockingham County, VA

10/31/1915; Harrisonburg, VA; burial in Woodbine Cemetery, Harrisonburg, VA