Submitted by P. Kirby Gull, gr-gr nephew.

GEORGE W. GULL, Company "D" 3rd Regiment West Virginia Infantry (Subsequently 6th Cavalry).

GULL, GEORGE W., his older brother Quincy A. and seventy three other young
men enlisted in the Third Regiment Virginia Infantry Volunteers on the 28th
day of June 1861 at Newburg, Virginia. (The Third Regiment Virginia Infantry
Volunteers was reorganized in 1863 as the Third West Virginia Mounted
Infantry and finally as the Sixth Regiment Cavalry Volunteers). George was
mustered in as a private and Quincy as a servant into Captain Litzinger's
company of Virginia Foot Volunteers.

For several months George saw little more than an occasional skirmish with
an elusive and mostly invisible enemy along the eastern edge of Western
Virginia. Then in May 1862 as Union forces fortified positions near the
village of McDowell, Virginia, Confederates under the command of General
Thomas J. Jackson gathered menacingly on the hills and surrounded the
Federal lines. The fierce fighting that followed left hundreds of men
wounded and killed. George had seen his elephant and now laid helpless on
the battlefield - a Confederate bullet having slammed into his left leg.

The wound won him a furlough home. As George rejoined his company in July
1862, his older brother, 35 year-old and father of five, Philip Smell Gull
journeyed to Morgantown, Virginia and signed up for his own three-year term
as a private. Before the War's end a fourth brother, Lebbeus W., would also
enlist.

George was mustered out at Wheeling, West Virginia on 15 August 1864. Of
the four brothers who wore the union blue, only Philip S would not return home.
Taken prisoner at Winchester on 8 April 1864, Philip and sixteen others of
the Sixth West Virginia Cavalry were marched towards the nearest railhead
and transported to Richmond. After a few weeks Philip was transferred to
Andersonville. He'd survive only a few months dying on 28th of September
1864; just weeks prior to the compound's dismantling. His remains were
interred outside the prison walls and designated by Dorence Atwater as one
of the "Unknowns".

Returning to Newburg, George went to work for the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad as a mechanic and as a brakeman. In a little over a year he took
the hand of Civil War widow, Elizabeth Ann Kyle, the Reverend King of
Grafton tying the knot on 28 September 1965. The couple had five known
children: David W. b. 1968, d, in infancy; Adam W. b. 1870, d. 1873; Mary
A., b. 3 June 1871; George H., b. 7 March 1974 and Virgil T., b. 1877.

Filing for a pension based on his leg wound was laborious. Due to the lack
of credible medical evidence the applications were denied multiple times.
Finally he was awarded 12 dollars a month for the rest of his life. He
continued to work for the B&O moving several times first to Grafton, then to
Keyser, to Shaw and back to Keyser.

Thirty-two years after he was mustered out, George was admitted to the
National Asylum for Disabled Soldiers in Montgomery County, Ohio (Near
present day Dayton) At the time there were only two other homes, one in
Tongus, Maine and the other in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The most likely reason
the Dayton Home was chosen was its location on the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad. He was only 58 years old. The reasons for his admission remain
unclear.

On 17 January 1897, less than eight months and just days before his 59th
birthday, George died. He was buried in the cemetery adjacent to the Home
now known as the Dayton National Cemetery. A plain white marble marker
stands sentinel over his grave located in Plot K, Row 14, grave number 18.

[P. Kirby Gull, gr-gr nephew, obtained George's class I medal from the West
Virginia Archives in 1992. Engraved along the edge "Geo. W. Gull Co. D 6th
Reg Cav Vol". Medals for the other brothers have not been located.]