George Washington Copley

In 1860 he was a 16 year old apprentice saddler living with his very recently widowed mother and 4 siblings in Orange County, NC. He enlisted at Fort Macon on 1 June 1861 and mustered as a Private in Company G, 27th North Carolina Infantry on 22 June.

He was with his company at Harpers Ferry and in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.

He was captured at Bristoe Station, VA on 14 October 1863 and held at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, DC to 27 October, when he was sent on to Point Lookoout, MD. He was paroled there on 18 February 1865, exchanged, and sent to Camp Lee at Richmond, VA by the 23rd, with no later military record.

By 1880 and to at least 1900 he was a brick layer and carpenter in Crystal Springs, Copiah County, MS. In 1910 he was President of the local bank and he'd finally retired by 1920, then age 75, in Crystal Springs. In 1930 he was lodging with the J.B. Jackson family in Raymond, Hinds County, MS.

His service from his Compiled Service Records,1 online from fold3 and J.A. Graham's Descriptive Book of the Orange Guards in his Papers;2 thanks to Steve Peck for the nudge to look deeper into that. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860-1930. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Jane C. Gambrell (1844-1918) in Madison, MS in February 1875 and they had a daughter Lula.

03/03/1845; Orange County, NC

1937; Raymond, MS; burial in Crystal Springs Cemetery, Crystal Springs, Copiah County, MS