George M. Searle was born around 1844 in Westfield, Massachusetts, to Lysander Searle and Rachel Jones. His father was a laborer who owned $150 in real estate and $50 in personal estate in 1860. Searle enlisted in the Union army in Westfield on September 13, 1861, and mustered into Company F of the 27^th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. According to his enlistment records, he was 5 feet, 8 inches tall, with blue eyes and light hair.

 

In January 1862, the army moved the regiment to North Carolina, where it took part in the Battle of Roanoke Island and the Battle of New Bern. The men were stationed in New Bern until October 1863, when the army transferred them to Virginia. Searle reenlisted as a veteran volunteer on November 25, 1863, and received a $400 bounty. The men joined the Army of the Potomac in May 1864, and they took part in the Battle of Cold Harbor the following month. Searle was captured by Confederate cavalry near Cold Harbor on June 12, 1864, and he spent the rest of the war in Andersonville Prison. He was paroled in April 1865 and discharged from the army on May 15, 1865.

 

After the war, Searle returned to his parents’ house in Westfield. He married Theodora McKinnon in Nashua, New Hampshire, on December 18, 1875, and their daughter Grace was born around 1881. By 1920, Searle was living in the Soldiers’ Home in Suffolk, Massachusetts. He eventually moved to the Soldiers’ Home in Elizabeth City, Virginia, and he died there on April 18, 1930. 

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