George Williamson Balloch

George Williamson Balloch (December 3, 1825 – May 17, 1907) was an American military officer, railroad agent, and civil servant who served during the American Civil War and in the post-war Freedmen's Bureau. Rising from first lieutenant to the brevet rank of brigadier general of volunteers, he served as Chief Commissary of Subsistence for several major commands, including the Eleventh Corps, the Twentieth Corps, and the Army of Georgia. He helped open the "Cracker Line" that relieved the starving Union forces at Chattanooga, narrowly survived Gettysburg when a bullet grazed his ear, and kept Sherman's armies fed through the Atlanta Campaign, the March to the Sea, and the Carolinas Campaign. After the war, he served as Chief Disbursing Officer of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands under General Oliver Otis Howard, disbursing over twenty million dollars during Reconstruction, and was the first Treasurer of the Board of Trustees of Howard University.

Early life and education Balloch was born on December 3, 1825, in West Claremont, Sullivan County, New Hampshire, on the south side of the Sugar River near its junction with the Connecticut River.