Sergeant Alexander Speirs George in uniform

Ninth-plate ambrotype with applied color of a 3/4 portrait of Sergeant Alexander Speirs George in uniform, wearing a slouch hat with a feather plume. The case sections are held together with black cloth tape. Sgt. Alexander Speirs George (1845-1929) was a member of Co. A and Co. F, 10th Virginia Cavalry. Alexander Speirs (or Spiers) George's dashing look and demeanor reflected his emulation of the general he served: J. E. B. Stuart. A cadet at Virginia Military Institute, George enlisted as a private in Co. A, 10th Virginia Cavalry in 1863. He soon became a courier and "special escort" for Stuart. At Stuart's side during the Battle of Yellow Tavern, George provided the pencil with which Stuart wrote his last dispatches. George returned to his regiment as a sergeant after Stuart's death. Although he was wounded in December 1864, he returned to duty shortly before Appomattox. After the war, he earned a fortune in tobacco, earned a medical degree, and became a noted philanthropist. An admirer wrote in 1931 that "the Southern cause was to him ever a sacred trust this son of Virginia, who rode by the side of the immortal Stuart." From the Collections of the Confederate Memorial Literary Society managed by the Virginia Historical Society