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George W. Hutchison, son of Robert Mason Hutchison and
Mary Elizabeth Taney of Craig County, Virginia, was a
41-year-old farmer, married, and the father of several
children when he joined the Confederate army in late July
1861. He was appointed second lieutenant in Captain William
Gaines Miller’s “Minute Men,” which
became the second Company K of the 46th Regiment Virginia
Volunteers. This regiment was also known as the 1st Regiment
Infantry, Wise Legion. The Wise Legion was a brigade-sized
unit commanded by former Virginia governor, Henry A. Wise.
George W. Hutchison was not the only member of his
immediate family who served the Confederacy. Four of
his brothers also wore Confederate gray: James Jackson
Hutchison of the second Company K, 46th Virginia; Daniel
Taney Hutchison of the second Company C, 46th Virginia;
John Floyd Hutchison of Company B, 28th Virginia Infantry;
and Martin Van Buren Hutchison of the second Company
C, 28th Virginia. Two of George’s four brothers
did not survive the war. Daniel died of disease in the
fall of 1861 and Martin a few months later.
Lieutenant Hutchison served with his company in the
mountains of western Virginia, now West Virginia, during
General Robert E. Lee’s campaign against Union
General William S. Rosecrans in the fall of 1861. Sometime
during that fall or winter, Second Lieutenant Hutchison
was promoted to first lieutenant. Also during this time,
his wife Sarah gave birth to another son, whom she named
Daniel Mason Hutchison.
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In early
1862, Wise’s Legion was ordered from the mountains
of Virginia to the North Carolina coast to protect the
Outer Banks from a Union force under General Ambrose E.
Burnside. Several companies of the 46th Virginia, including
the second Company K, were captured during the fight for
Roanoke Island on February 8, 1862.
Lieutenant Hutchison was not among the captured, however.
Not long after his promotion to first lieutenant, he
had been sent on detached service to retrieve the men
of his company who had returned home without leave,
and during this service his health broke down. In May
1862, upon the reorganization of his company, he resigned
his commission and returned to his family in Craig County.
As his personal letters reveal, former Lieutenant Hutchison
maintained a keen interest in the fate of his old company
for the rest of the war. Company K numbered only nine
men when it surrendered at Appomattox in April 1865.
George W. Hutchison was 70 years old when he died in
1890. He is buried in Craig County, not far from where
he was born.
The memory of First Lieutenant George W. Hutchison,
Company K (2nd), 46th Virginia Infantry, is perpetuated
in this camp by his direct descendant, James Philip
“Cuda” Jones.
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