Commodore Joel Abbot, Camp No. 21

Brevet Brigadier General George W. Tew

George Washington Tew was born in Newport, RI, on the 13th of November, 1820. He had from his youth manifested an inclination for military exercises. In 1840, at the age of seventeen, he joined the Rhode Island Horse Guards, a cavalry company composed of volunteers from Newport, Middletown and Portsmouth. The following year Mr. Tew joined the Newport Artillery Company, and soon became its commander, a position which he held in 1861.

On the 15th April, 1861, a telegram from Governor Sprague inquiring how many men could be raised, reached Captain Tew while he was quietly at work at his trade. Laying his trowel on the wall, he returned an answer to the governor that he would raise a hundred men. Two days after he reported in Providence with one hundred and eight men, rank and file. The company was mustered into the First Regiment Detached Militia, and was assigned the honorable position of color company of the regiment. Captain Tew returned with his company to Newport, on Sunday, the 28th of July, where they were welcomed by the entire city.

Captain Tew was promoted to major in the Fourth Rhode Island Infantry, Oct. 11, 1861. On the 20th of the same month he was further promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Colonel Tew participated with his regiment in the battles of Roanoke Island and New Berne.

At the commencement of the siege of Fort Macon, Lieutenant-Colonel Tew was ordered by General Parke to take possession of a certain position near the fort. With four companies from his own regiment and four from the Eighth Connecticut, detailed to his command for that purpose, he took the coveted position and drove in the enemy's pickets. On the 20th of April 1862, Colonel Rodman received his commission as brigadier-general, and the command of the Fourth fell upon Lieutenant-Colonel Tew.

On the 5th of July, he received orders to embark his regiment, and open his dispatches at sea. On opening his dispatches the destination of the regiment was found to be Fortress Monroe, where it had been ordered with a view of joining the Ninth Army corps for the campaign on the Peninsula. On reaching that place the regiment debarked at Newport News, where the command was taken by Col. W. H. P. Steere, promoted from the lieutenant-colonelcy of the Second Regiment. The Fourth was now ordered to Fredericksburg, Virginia, where thirteen of its officers, feeling the unjust manner in which Lieutenant-Colonel Tew had been slighted, resigned their commissions; and he, seeing how the other officers were affected, felt it his duty, also, to resign, which he accordingly did on the 12th of August, 1862, and returned to Newport, where he remained until again called into the service.

He was not long at home, for, on the first of October following, he was commissioned as major in the Fifth regiment, then at New Berne, NC, at which place he reported promptly for duty. Major Tew assumed the command of the Fifth until January, 1863, when Colonel Sisson, who had been promoted from major of the Third Rhode Island Heavy Artillery, arrived and took command of the regiment.

SOURCE: Bartlett's Memoirs of Rhode Island Officers

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