George W. Bugbee was born on November 5, 1844, in Sylvan, Washtenaw County, Michigan, the son of Connecticut-born John Corbin Bugbee (1811-1862) and New Yorker Sabrina H. Blake (1822-1873).
By 1850 the family was living in Orangeville, Barry County where George was attending school with his older brother. (Lewis was living in Prairieville, Barry County in 1860.)
George stood 6’1” with blue eyes, brown hair and a fair complexion and was 19 years old and working as a farmer in Orangeville, Barry County when he enlisted in Company E on January 1, 1864, at Grand Rapids for 3 years, crediting Orangeville, and was mustered on January 5 at Grand Rapids. (He was possibly related to Edward Bugbee who was also from Barry County and who enlisted in Company K in 1861.) George joined the Regiment on February 10.
He was shot in the left hip on May 12 at Spotsylvania, Virginia. On May 25 he was admitted to Armory Square hospital in Washington, DC, and transferred on May 28 to Mt. Pleasant general hospital, also in Washington.
George was still absent wounded when he was transferred to Company E, 5th Michigan infantry upon consolidation of the 3rd and 5th Michigan Regiments on June 10, 1864. he never did returned to duty and remained absent until he was discharged on February 17, 1865, at Mt. Pleasant hospital for gunshot wound of the left hip with “the ball entering the central part of his buttock where it lodged, and the wound was still open.”
George gave Prairieville, Barry County as his mailing address on his discharge paper, and indeed he returned there after he left the army. In June of 1865 he was living in Prairieville when he applied for pension no. 77,483, drawing $6.00 per month by 1869 and $12 by 1912.
George married New York native Ellen R. Bitgood (1848-1876) on June 14, 1868, in Orangeville, Barry County and they had at least one child, a daughter Grace (b. 1872, Mrs. Swanson).
By 1870 George and Ellen were living on a farm in Orangeville, and he was living in Prairieville in 1873 when he testified in the pension claim of another former member of the Old Third, Reuben Babcock (also from Barry County).
By 1880 George was a widower, working as a laborer and as a servant in the boarding house run by his younger sister or sister-in-law (?) Lucy Bugbee in Orangeville. Also living with him was his daughter Grace.
George was living in Morley, Mecosta County in 1883, in Blain Township, Iosco County in 1890 and in Martiny (?), Mecosta County in 1894. By 1898 he was residing in Waitville, Monroe County and back in Orangeville by 1907. (He may again have been living with Lucy; she didn’t die until 1915.)
In 1907 George was living in Stokesville, Augusta County, Virginia.
George died on September 9, 1912, probably in Stokesville, Virginia and is buried in Mt. Zion Church Cemetery in Stokesville (so is his daughter Grace).
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