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George J. Morrison was born July 24, 1836, at Smithfield, Isle of Wight County, Va., but shortly before the War between the States he moved to Petersburg and lived an honored citizen of the city until his death, June 3, 1915. He is buried in historic old Blanford Cemetery, at Petersburg.

Others may have performed more distinguished service for the Confederacy and risen higher in rank and thereby attracted more attention to their deeds, but none ever entered the armies of the Confederacy from higher and purer motives of patriotism than Sergt. George J. Morrison, Company A, 12th Virginia Infantry. This was Mahone's old regiment, and to those who are conversant with the history of the battles of the war it will be apparent that Sergeant Morrison experienced a full share of vissitudes of that war.

He was a man of remarkable philosophic cheerfulness, and on the march, in the bivouac, in battle, or amid any and all of the untoward events of life he was a regular "Mark Tapley," always jolly, taking an optimistic view of things that would have depressed others. When shot through the body, apparently where his heart ought to have been, and his life was saved almost, as it were, by a miracle, his comment was: "It surely would have been worse had not my heart been in my boots or throat."

He was a deeply religious man and turned his faith to more practical account than most men; and it mattered not what unaccountable misfortunes befell him, in them by his unswerving faith he could see the "finger of God" and accept the results with a cheerful trust in a good and merciful God.

In all his relations of life he was good and true-to his country, his family, and his friends-and despised meanness and hypocrisy either in high or low place. And when such a good, true, and honorable soldier wraps the "drapery of his couch about him and lies about him and lies down to pleasant dreams," his virtues should be perpetuated.