General george gordon meade biography

George Gordon Meade was born on December 31, 1815, in Cádiz, Spain, to American parents, Richard W. Meade, an agent for the U.S. Navy, and Margaret Coates Meade.

General george gordon meade biography

He was raised mostly in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, though he also lived in Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. He was graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1835 (finishing nineteenth in his class), saw service in the Mexican War (1846–1848), and spent several years prior to the Civil War in charge of lighthouse construction and surveying the Great Lakes.

In 1861, he was given command of a brigade of Pennsylvania troops, with whom he first saw action at the Battle of Gaines’s Mill in June 1862.

Meade was seriously wounded on June 30, 1862, at the Battle of Glendale in Henrico County, but returned to duty with remarkable alacrity to participate in the Second Manassas Campaign (1862). Promoted to division command at the outset of the Maryland Campaign in September 1862, Meade performed well at