George Francis McGinnis

George Francis McGinnis was born March 19, 1826, in Boston, Massachusetts. His mother died when George was an infant, and he lived with an aunt in Hampden, Maine. At the age of eleven, his father, a hatter, took him to Chillocothe, Ohio. He went to the Mexican War in 1846, was a lieutenant of the 2nd Ohio Volunteers, and was mustered out as a captain on July 25, 1848. In 1850, he moved to Indianapolis where he took up his father’s trade and manufactured hats. Immediately at the start of the Civil War, McGinnis gave up his business in Indianapolis and, on April 15, 1861, enlisted as a private in Lew Wallace’s 11th Indiana, a three-month regiment. In just a few days, he became lieutenant colonel and Wallace’s second in command, but saw little action when he served in the campaign in western Virginia. In August 1861, the 11th Indiana was remustered for three years and McGinnis became a colonel. He won the praises of Lew Wallace when he led his regiment in the capture of Fort Donelson and a short time later when he was in temporary command of the 1st Brigade of the division at Shiloh. He took part with his regiment in the advance on Corinth; in February 1863, he took part in the Yazoo Pass expedition as a brigade commander and, in the campaign against Vicksburg, led a brigade in McClernand’s XIII Corps. After the fall of Vicksburg, he was relegated to a sequence of insignificant commands, possibly due to his association with Lew Wallace and John A. McClernand who were very unpopular officers in the Regular Army. He was transferred with the Corps to N. P. Banks’ Department of the Gulf in the later Military Division of West Mississippi, and in the Department of Arkansas. He had been made a brigadier general April 4, 1863, to rank from November 29, 1862. As the Civil War came to an end, he was in command of an infantry regiment, two cavalry companies, and a battery at the mouth of the White River in Arkansas. He was mustered out on August 24, 1865, and did not receive a brevet major generalship. Following the war, he settled in Indianapolis and held various local and state offices. He served as county auditor from 1867 to 1871 and then operated a fiduciary business. In 1900, President William McKinley appointed him postmaster of Indianapolis. He died May 29, 1910, in Indianapolis and his ashes were buried there in Crown Hill Cemetery.

---