George Washington Buck

A 21 year old farmer, he mustered as Private, Company A, First Minnesota Infantry on 22 May 1861. He was wounded by gunshot at First Bull Run on 21 July 1861.

He was wounded in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

He was captured at Warrenton, VA on 13 October 1863 and held in Richmond, VA. He was paroled at City Point, VA on 9 March 1864 and mustered out at Ft. Snelling, MN. In April 1865 he arrived in Stow, OH on a boat from Detroit, and met fellow First Minnesota veteran Ed Season who was on the way to enlist. With Season he enlisted 27 April 1865 in Company H, 198th Ohio Infantry and collected a $100 bonus. He mustered out on 8 May 1865 in Baltimore, MD.

In 1892 he homesteaded on land between the Spider and Manitowish Lakes near Manitowish, WI, and in 1896 established and operated - with his son Lafayette - the Spider Lake Resort there (until his son sold it in 1916). By about 1902 he also ran a hotel/resort at Divide, WI, on the south shore of North Turtle Lake.

Casualty information from Nelson1. Service from Minnesota in the Civil and Indian Wars.2 Details from Barden & Jorgenson3, family genealogists, and the Vilas County [WI] News Review of 19 February 1986 from the Manitowish Waters Library. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

A lovely photograph of his resort's main lodge is online from livinginwi2002 on Flickr.

07/06/1840; Steuben County, NY

06/10/1914; Spider Lake Resort, Manitowish Waters, WI; burial in Pine Grove Cemetery, Wausau, Marathon County, WI