George Hills Starr
George Hills Starr was born on January 8, 1840, in Rochester, New York, to Frederick and Lucy Ann Starr. His father was a cabinet manufacturer who owned $60,000 of real estate by 1850. Starr grew up and attended school in Rochester before enrolling at Hamilton College. He graduated in 1861 and briefly studied law before joining the Union army. As he later recalled, “finding it impossible to study to any good purpose, in view of the exciting news daily coming from the front, I laid down Blackstone, took up a musket, and enlisted” in the Union army.
He enlisted in November 1861, and he mustered in as a private in Company D of the 104th New York Infantry. He was promoted to sergeant soon afterward, and he spent the winter of 1861-62 on recruitment duty. The regiment took part in the Second Battle of Bull Run, the Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Battle of Chancellorsville, and the Battle of Gettysburg. He was promoted to 2nd lieutenant on March 6, 1862, and then to captain on September 12, 1862.
Confederate forces captured him at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863, and imprisoned him at Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia. He later recalled that the “most repulsive feature about Libby was the lack of privacy. There was a constant jostle of one man against another.” He escaped in early 1864, but Confederates recaptured him soon afterward. They moved him to Macon, Georgia, around May 1864 and then to Columbia, South Carolina, later that year.
Despite his imprisonment, he remained devoted to the Union cause. He later wrote that “Fourth of July [in 1864] was celebrated with speeches and songs, one officer producing and waving a tiny United States flag. This ceremony the rebs threatened to interfere with, but we persevered and gave them some hearty Union songs.” He escaped again in October 1864 and made his way to Knoxville, Tennessee, where he rejoined the Union army. He mustered out in January 1865.
Starr returned to Rochester after the war, and he earned a living as a lawyer. He married Amanda McNair around 1871, and they had at least three children: Lucy, born around 1874; Jennie, born around 1876; and Emma, born around 1879. They travelled abroad in 1889, and his passport described him as 5 feet, 7¾ inches tall, with dark brown hair, a full beard, and gray eyes. They lived in Brooklyn, New York, until the late 1800s, when they moved to Westfield, New Jersey. They moved to Yonkers, New York, in the early 1900s. He died there on July 29, 1916.
Image: George H. Starr (Reminiscences of a Prisoner of War and His Escape)
DATABASE CONTENT
| (5010) | Starr, George Hills | 1840-01-08 | 1916-07-29 |
- Conflict Side: Union
- Role: Soldier
- Rank in: Private
- Rank out: Captain
- Rank highest: Captain
- Gender: Male
- Race: White
Documents - Records: 6
- (4239) [associated with] ~ Lewis C. Skinner to Edwin D. Morgan, 22 September 1862
- (14050) [writer] ~ George H. Starr to Frederick Starr, 21 March 1864
- (14051) [associated with] ~ Henry H. Mason to Frederick Starr, 29 March 1864
- (14052) [writer] ~ George H. Starr to Lucy A. Starr, 5 June 1864
- (14053) [writer] ~ George H. Starr to Frederick Starr, 13 August 1864
- (14054) [writer] ~ George H. Starr to Lucy A. Starr, 17 September 1864
People - Records: 2
Places - Records: 2
Regiments - Records: 1
- (1116) [officer] ~ 104th New York Infantry
Groups - Records: 1
- (6) [member/supporter] ~ Grand Army of the Republic
SOURCES
1850, 1880, 1900, and 1910 United States Federal Censuses, available from Ancestry.com; Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, 1861-1865, available from Ancestry.com; New York Civil War Muster Roll Abstracts, 1861-1900, available from Ancestry.com; General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934, available from Ancestry.com; School Catalogs, 1765-1935, available from Ancestry.com; Passport Applications, 1795-1925, available from Ancestry.com; George H. Starr, “In and Out of Confederate Prisons,” Personal Recollections of the War of the Rebellion, ed. A. Noel Blakeman (New York, NY: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1897); Daniel Avery Langworthy, Reminiscences of a Prisoner of War and His Escape (Minneapolis, MN: Byron Printing Company, 1915)
