Birth: Sep. 1, 1840, Granville, Hampden County, Massachusetts.
Death: Oct. 3, 1890.
Wife: Fanny D. Kingsley Harger,
Married October 18, 1865.
Children: Linus W. Harger.
Burial: Cemetery of the Maples, Canaan, Columbia County, New York.
Note. On his pension file, his wife name was spelled; Fannie L. Kingsley.
Massachusetts Tenth Infantry, Co. I.
Harger, George S., b. West Granville; 20, S.; farmer, Granville; April 26, '61; wd. right shoulder. Fair Oaks;wd. thigh, Spottsylvania, and captured, lying two days and nights upon the field; a prisoner in Orange Court House, Gordonsville, Trevellion Station, and Richmond, being in six different prisons before his trip down the James, Feb. 18, '65, to freedom; June 24, '65, was recaptured by Sheridan but, owing to wds., could not be removed; when he did start for liberty, it was in the arms of a stalwart comrade who carried him out bodily,clothed in rags indescribable; M. O. April 14, '65; in 1875, dealer in hay and straw. East Chatham, N. Y., apparently in excellent health; said to have been killed at Ayer by R. R. train.
The medical and surgical history of the war of the rebellion, Volume 2., pt. 2.
Corporal G. S. Harger, Co. 1, 10th Massachusetts, aged 24 years, was wounded at Spottsylvania. May 18, 1864, and made prisoner and paroled to Annapolis, where Surgeon B. A. Vanderkieft reported that the "ball entered the right buttock and passed forward, wounding the rectum, urethra, and bladder, and emerged through the upper third of the left thigh. This soldier was sent to Boston, well, April 15, 1865, for muster out.
On May 18, 186, the Regiment suffered severe losses in the left flank movement of General Grant, and in the report of that engagement I included among the killed Corporal Harger, who was a true soldier in every respect, and a man of deep rehgious convictions. Two years after the war my doorbell rang in Northampton. I answered the bell, and was surprised to see Corporal Harger, whom I had supposed killed.
He came in and stayed with me a day or two, and his story from that time until'he got into the Union lines would fill a book. He lay there, he savs, that afternoon and nearly all the next day, till towards night he saw a Rebel with half a dozen canteens on the end of a musket thrown over his shoulder. He must have some water. He managed to raise himself and attract the Rebel's attention who came over to where he lay. He said "Oh! for God's sake give me a little water." "Give you water, you damned Yankee you killed my brother here yesterday."
He threw down the canteens, seized his musket, the right hand at the small and the left at the tail bend, and made a lunge at the Corporal as though he would run his bayonet through him. He said, "I'm not going to kill you yet; I'm going to torture you." Three separate times he went through this motion; the last time when the Corporal opened his eyes, the countenance of the Rebel had completely changed; he threw down the musket and said, "For God's sake, what am I thinking of? I may be where you are tomorrow."
He took the canteen, bathed the Corporal's brow, gave him a drink, and then got a little pine bush which he inserted in the ground to keep the sun off and said, " I will send an ambulance for you when I get into camp." The Corporal was soon taken to a camp of wounded Rebels, where lie was the only Union soldier present.
Massachusetts Tenth Regimental History.
He came in and stayed with me a day or two, and his story from that time until'he got into the Union lines would fill a book. He lay there, he savs, that afternoon and nearly all the next day, till towards night he saw a Rebel with half a dozen canteens on the end of a musket thrown over his shoulder. He must have some water. He managed to raise himself and attract the Rebel's attention who came over to where he lay. He said "Oh! for God's sake give me a little water." "Give you water, you damned Yankee you killed my brother here yesterday."
He threw down the canteens, seized his musket, the right hand at the small and the left at the tail bend, and made a lunge at the Corporal as though he would run his bayonet through him. He said, "I'm not going to kill you yet; I'm going to torture you." Three separate times he went through this motion; the last time when the Corporal opened his eyes, the countenance of the Rebel had completely changed; he threw down the musket and said, "For God's sake, what am I thinking of? I may be where you are tomorrow."
He took the canteen, bathed the Corporal's brow, gave him a drink, and then got a little pine bush which he inserted in the ground to keep the sun off and said, " I will send an ambulance for you when I get into camp." The Corporal was soon taken to a camp of wounded Rebels, where lie was the only Union soldier present.
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