John White Geary (30 December 1819 – 8 February 1873) was Mayor of San Francisco from 1 May 1850 to 4 May 1851 (preceding Charles James Brenham), Territorial Governor of Kansas from 9 September 1856 to 20 March 1857 (succeeding Wilson Shannon and preceding Robert J. Walker), Governor of Pennsylvania from 15 January 1867 to 21 January 1873 (succeeding Andrew Gregg Curtin and preceding John F. Hartranft), and a Union Army Major-General during the Mexican-American War.
Biography[]
John White Geary was born in Mount Pleasant, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania in 1819, and he worked as a surveyor, land speculator, and engineer before serving as a US Army colonel in the Mexican-American War and being wounded at the Battle of Chapultepec. He became a war hero for his actions at Belen Gate, and he served as Mayor of San Francisco, California from 1850 to 1851, the youngest mayor in the city's history. He returned to Pennyslvania in 1852 due to his wife's failing health, and he declined appointment as Governor of Utah after his wife's death. However, he accepted appointment as Governor of Kansas in 1856, and pro-slavery forces opposed Geary during Bleeding Kansas. He clashed with the proslavery legislature despite his attempts at being a peacemaker, and he also later aligned with the abolitionists and refused the Democratic party's nomination to serve as a US Senator from Kansas, instead focusing on making Kansas a free state. He was fired by President James Buchanan in 1857, and he raised two Pennsylvania regiments when the American Civil War broke out in 1861, fighting for abolition. He was seriously wounded in the arm and leg while commanding a brigade at the Battle of Cedar Mountain in August 1862, but he returned in October as a division commander. He was knocked unconscious at the Battle of Chancellorsville when a cannonball passed his head, but he recovered in time to fight at the Battle of Gettysburg. His son Edward died in his arms at the Battle of Wauhatchie during the Chattanooga Campaign, enraging him so much that his outnumbered division prevailed over the Confederates. He later distinguished himself at the Battle of Lookout Mountain, the Atlanta Campaign, the March to the Sea, and the Carolinas Campaign, and he oversaw the surrender of Savannah, Georgia and served as the city's military governor. After the war, he served as the Republican Governor of Pennsylvania from 1867 to 1873, and he died shortly after leaving office in 1873.
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