George H. Pettis

Born on March 17, 1834, in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, George Henry Pettis was a soldier, veteran writer, and later a Rhode Island resident whose work helped document a lesser-known front of the Civil War. Records available online identify him as a captain in the 1st California Volunteer Infantry, and later references describe him as a brevet captain connected with Company K and the California Column.

Pettis is best remembered as the author of Kit Carson's Fight with the Comanche and Kiowa Indians, at the Adobe Walls on the Canadian River, November 25th, 1864, first published in 1878. Library and catalog records also credit him with Frontier Service During the Rebellion and The California Column, books that draw on his own experience in campaigns across New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. His writing is valued for its firsthand detail and for preserving the perspective of Union troops serving far from the war’s eastern battlefields.

He died on January 28, 1909, and was buried at Swan Point Cemetery in Providence, Rhode Island. A reliable portrait image was not clearly available from the sources I could confirm, so no profile image is included here.