George B. Fitzgerald (1828-1864)
This biography is a summary of my research for portraying George B. Fitzgerald at the Immortal 600 living history event at Ft. Pulaski, Georgia, in 2007. It's in three parts, linked from this page.
The first is a narrative, summarizing my interpretation of George B. Fitzgerald's life. It's founded on the available facts, but with my own suppositions, guesses and opinions based on those facts.
The second is a chronology that lists data about the life of George and his family. Everything in it is based on specific documentation, mostly from census and military records, and other primary and secondary sources.
The third part, titled "Further Information," includes research on the parts of George's life for which there's more data than will comfortably fit into the chronology. This is also based on specific documentation.
Although this biography contains a fair amount of information, there are several avenues for further research that could be pursued.
Cave Johnson Couts was a lieutenant in the First Dragoons and shows up in the 1850 census in the same San Diego barracks as George Fitzgerald and his brother Edward. Couts also served as captain in the Fitzgerald Volunteers, organized by George.
According to the San Diego History website : "Cave Couts is well known to San Diego historians as a result of his meticulous care in recording and preserving nearly every aspect of his life in voluminous diaries, notebooks, and letters. At present the greatest portion of this resource material is housed at the Henry E. Huntington Library in San Marino, California. Together with the papers of his son, Cave Jr., these make up a collection of manuscripts of some 16,000 pieces."
It's likely that Couts' diaries include further details about George and the brief overlap in their lives in California in the 1850s.
There are also other existing diaries and letters of members of the Fitzgerald Volunteers and witnesses to their actions, which I've found published in excerpts but have not seen in full, and they may have more information about George Fitzgerald.
Also, examination of military records in the San Diego area in the 1850s may show more evidence of George Fitzgerald's civilian employment by the quartermaster department at that time.
Another possibility to pursue is court records in the Norfolk-Dinwiddie area in 1855-1863. It's possible George may have been arrested or sued at that time, since he was suffering from alcoholism and perhaps money problems then.
