George Bernard Drake was born on April 14, 1838, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Samuel and Louisa Drake. His father was a bookseller. Drake grew up and attended school in Boston, and by the early 1860s, he was working as a clerk.

 

On June 26, 1861, he received a commission as a 2^nd lieutenant in Company D of the 12^th Massachusetts Infantry. He resigned in August 1861 to receive a commission as a 2^nd lieutenant in the 6^th United States Infantry. He was wounded in the Battle of Antietam. He was promoted to captain on May 22, 1862, to major on March 11, 1863, to lieutenant colonel on November 4, 1863. He served as an assistant adjutant general under General Nathaniel Prentiss Banks. He resigned on March 23, 1865, and he later received a brevet promotion to brigadier general.

 

Drake returned to Boston after the war, and he married Annie C. Kendall on November 15, 1865. Their son Charles was born around 1870. Drake worked as a commission merchant in Boston, and by 1870, he owned $5,000 of personal property. By 1900, he was earning a living as an insurance agent. They moved to Wiscasset, Maine, in the early 1900s. By 1910, he was living in his son Charles’s household in Wells, Maine. He died there of uremia and “senile decay” in Wells, Maine, on July 20, 1921.

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