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George Stoneman Jr. (August 8, 1822 – September 5, 1894) was a United States Army cavalry officer and politician who served as the 15th governor of California from 1883 to 1887.
Stoneman trained at West Point, graduating in 1846, and served in the U.S. Army for 36 years. He was involved in multiple conflicts, including the Mexican–American War, the Yuma War, and the American Civil War. In 1861, Stoneman was promoted to Brigadier General, and was later put in command of the Army of the Potomac's 3rd Infantry Corps, and subsequently the newly created cavalry corps.
At the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863, under the command of Joseph Hooker, Stoneman failed in an ambitious attempt to penetrate behind enemy lines, getting bogged down at an important river crossing. Hooker placed much of the blame for the Union army's defeat on Stoneman. His sharp criticism may have been in part intended to deflect blame placed on himself for the North's defeat.
While commanding cavalry under William Tecumseh Sherman in Georgia, Stoneman was captured by Confederate soldiers, but soon exchanged. Shortly after the end of the American Civil War, Stoneman commanded occupying troops at Memphis, Tennessee, who were stationed at Fort Pickering. He had turned over control of law enforcement to the civilian government by May 1866, when the Memphis riots broke out and the major black neighborhoods were destroyed. When the city asked for help, he suppressed the rioting with the use of federal troops. He later moved out to California, where he had an estate in the San Gabriel Valley. He was elected as governor of California, serving between 1883 and 1887. He was not nominated a second time.
On November 22, 1861, Stoneman married Mary Oliver Hardisty of Baltimore. They had four children.
Following the failures of the Peninsula campaign, Stoneman was reassigned to the infantry, and received command of the 1st Division of the III Corps on September 10 after its former commander, Maj. Gen. Phil Kearny, had been killed a week earlier. The III Corps remained in Washington, D.C., during the Maryland campaign. On October 30, Stoneman was placed in command of the entire III corps. At Fredericksburg, it formed part of Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker's Center Grand Division and helped drive back a Confederate assault during the battle. Following Fredericksburg, Hooker became commander of the Army of the Potomac and decided to re-organize the cavalry into a single corps with Stoneman at its head.
In early 1864, Stoneman was impatient with garrison duty in Washington and requested another field command from his old friend Maj. Gen. John Schofield, who was in command of the Department of the Ohio. Although originally slated for an infantry corps, Stoneman assumed command of the Cavalry Corps of what would be known as the Army of the Ohio. As the army fought in the Atlanta campaign under Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, Stoneman commanded an unsuccessful raid of the infamous Andersonville Prison. In the course of the raid he and his aide, Myles Keogh were captured by Confederates outside of Macon, Georgia. However, the 5th Indiana Cavalry Regiment under Col. Thomas Butler made a valiant stand, allowing the rest of his forces to retreat. They were surrendered as well, despite protest by Col. Butler. A Hoosier in Andersonville, by Robert Haughtalen, pp. 2–3 Stoneman became the highest-ranking Union prisoner of war, and he remained prisoner for three months.
Stoneman was exchanged relatively quickly due to the personal request of General Sherman. Following his release, Stoneman was briefly the commander of the Department of the Ohio. In December 1864, Stoneman led a raid through southwestern Virginia. In March 1865, Stoneman took roughly 4,000 troops out of Knoxville, Tennessee, and led them on a raid of Virginia and North Carolina, the intent being to cripple Confederate infrastructure and demoralize the population. Within a week, they had sacked the towns of Hillsville, Asheville, and Christiansburg, among others, and destroyed several bridges, lead mines and railroads.
Stoneman was assigned to administer the military government in the sub-district of Petersburg, Virginia, and in 1868, he assumed command of the First Military District. A Democrat who was opposed to the radical Reconstruction, Stoneman pursued more moderate policies than the other Military Governors, which garnered him support among white Virginians.
Stoneman mustered out of volunteer service on September 1, 1866, and reverted to the regular army rank of colonel. In 1869, the Army transferred him out west to command the District of Arizona (1869–1870) and subsequently the Department of Arizona (1870–71). Stoneman was relieved of his command due to controversies surrounding his handling of the region's Indians, including the Camp Grant massacre. On August 16, 1871, Stoneman was granted a disability retirement at his brevetted rank of Major General. Three days later, however, President Ulysses S. Grant revoked his disability licence, forcing him to retire at the rank of colonel.
Stoneman was a First Class Companion of the California Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.
In 1882, Stoneman was elected governor of California as a Democrat and served a single four-year term. During his tenure, he advocated controlling the rates and limiting the power of the Southern Pacific Railroad; however, he was unsuccessful in his efforts against the railroad-controlled legislature. Stoneman also was a proponent of prison reform, believing prisoners could be rehabilitated through parole. He granted 260 pardons and commuted 146 prison sentences in the last few weeks of his term. Stoneman was not renominated for governor in 1886; he left office and retired from public service.
He returned to New York State for medical treatment, and to stay with his sister, Charlotte S. Williams. He suffered a stroke in April 1894 from which he was unable to recover. Stoneman died in Buffalo, New York, on September 5, 1894, at age 72 and was Burial at Bentley Cemetery in Lakewood, New York.
Stoneman is not mentioned in the 1971 recording of the song by Joan Baez, in which she substitutes "so much cavalry" for "Stoneman's cavalry". Baez told Kurt Loder of Rolling Stone magazine that she had learned the song by listening to the track on The Band's album. Having never seen the printed lyrics, she sang the words mondegreen.
Stoneman Avenue in Alhambra, California, was named in his honor. Camp Stoneman, near Pittsburg, California, was the place from which many soldiers shipped out to the Pacific Theater in World War II and the Korean War. Stoneman Elementary School in San Marino, California, is built on Stoneman's Los Robles Ranch property. Stoneman Elementary School In 1885, California, which owned Yosemite at the time, built a luxury hotel with accommodations for 150 guests near the present location of Curry Village and named the hotel Stoneman House. The adjoining Stoneman Meadow takes its name from the hotel. The nearby Stoneman Bridge takes its name from the meadow. The hotel burned to the ground in 1896.Hutchings' guide Yo Semite Valley and Big Trees (1895) and One Hundred Years in Yosemite (C.P. Russell, 1947) Stoneman Lake in Arizona is also named in his honor. General George Stoneman Business Park, the site of the Southern Tier Brewery, is located on the Stoneman family farm in the town of Busti, New York.
General Stoneman's name is engraved on the Sonoma Veterans Memorial Park Star of Honor due to his time there before the Civil War.
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