From Harvard Memorial Biographies, 1866.

GEORGE WHITTEMORE, Jr.

Private 1st Co. Mass. Sharpshooters, August, 1861 ; Corporal; Sergeant; killed at Antietam, Md., September 17, 1862.

This memoir can be but a brief sketch, yet it aims to give glimpses of a character of much harmony and strength, and a career of persistent fidelity; though the one shrank from publicity, and the other was undecorated with the badges of rank.

George Whittemore, Jr., son of George and Anna Whittemore, was born in Boston, December 19, 1837. He attended the public schools of that city, graduating from the Latin School, a medal scholar, in 1853. He immediately entered Harvard College, as a member of the Class of 1857.

A few years before this his parents had removed to Gloucester, Massachusetts; and there, on the sea-shore and in the woods, during his vacations, were early developed his simple tastes and the manly physical habits which added vigor to a naturally strong constitution….

At Cambridge he was a close student, ranking among the first twelve of his Class. He excelled as a classical scholar. As a writer, he took several prizes for English composition, and he was noted for his clear comprehension of abstruse metaphysical questions. He taught school during the winters of his Sophomore and Junior years at Gloucester, and in the winter of his Senior year at Northampton. He was fond of athletic exercises and expert as an oarsman. His devotion to his books and his retiring manners prevented his forming many intimate acquaintances; but he was respected by all his associates and classmates for his fine intellectual and moral qualities.

On leaving college he was engaged as an assistant in the private classical school of Mr. E. S. Dixwell in Boston. Whilst occupying this position, and afterwards in the office of Messrs. J. J. Clarke and Lemuel Shaw, he studied law. He passed the usual examination and was admitted to the Suffolk Bar on the very day when he left home as a soldier. In the summer of 1860, to recruit his health, he went with a small party on an excursion which was to have been continued for several months in the Southwest. An unusual drought in that part of the country compelled him to give up the plan when only partially executed, and he returned alone on horseback, visiting the Adirondack regions on his way back….

On the breaking out of the war, he joined a drill-club; but it was not until after the disastrous battle of Bull Run that he fully determined to enter the army. With him, to resolve was to act; and he enlisted as a private in the First Company of Sharpshooters from his native State, in August, 1861. He had no acquaintances in the company, and joined it against the remonstrances of his friends, who felt that he was equal to and ought to take a higher position. He was not afterwards wholly satisfied with the step he had taken; yet the considerations which decided his course were both characteristic and honorable, inasmuch as they prompted him simply to take the place in which he thought he could be the most useful.

He was very near-sighted, and constantly used glasses; was an expert with the rifle, and capable of enduring fatigue; was doubtful of his military ability to act as an officer, and averse to the restraints and routine of an infantry regiment. For these reasons, he preferred at first, believing that the contest would be short, the independence and the opportunities for individual enterprise he hoped to find in an unattached command, and in the use of the telescopic rifle.

What it meant for such a man to be a soldier in this way can easily be imagined. His prospect of a peaceful future had been bright. The cherished home of his childhood and youth held him in a loving embrace; and there was one to be left upon whom he had bestowed his strongest affections. All this was to be put in mortal peril, and yet he did not hesitate. He had everything to lose, nothing to win, as men usually count losing and winning. But the risk must be taken, the privation must be endured; thus he felt and thus he acted.