Confederate General George Steuart is born - Aug 24, 1828 - HISTORY.com

Confederate General George Hume “Maryland” Steuart is born in Baltimore, Maryland.

Steuart attended West Point and graduated in 1844. He served in various capacities in Texas, Kansas, and Nebraska, and he was part of General Albert S. Johnston’s expedition against the Mormons in Utah. Steuart resigned his commission after the firing on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, in April 1861, because he anticipated that his native state would follow the other Southern states that had already seceded from the Union, and he was appointed major general of the Maryland volunteers who supported secession. When Maryland did not secede, Steuart accepted a commission as lieutenant colonel in the Confederate army. He earned his nickname from his close association with troops from Maryland.

Steuart became colonel when his regiment commander was promoted to brigadier general. He fought at the First Battle of Bull Run and in the spring of 1862 he was promoted to command a brigade. Steuart’s force served on General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s brilliant 1862 Shenandoah Valley campaign, and he fought at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, with Richard Ewell’s corps, where his brigade participated in the unsuccessful attacks against Culp’s Hill.

Steuart was also part of the 1864 campaign in Virginia between Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate General Robert E. Lee. At Spotsylvania Court House in May, he and his entire brigade were captured when Union forces overran the Bloody Angle. He was exchanged in August, and received command of a brigade in George Pickett’s division. Steuart remained with the Army of Northern Virginia until the surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, in 1865.

After the war, Steuart returned to Maryland, where he farmed and remained active in Confederate veterans’ groups until his death in 1903.