George Alexander Kenney was born in Bernardston, Franklin County, Massachusetts, on Aug 29, 1838. At the start of the war he was a 22 year old farmer living at Horseshoe Lake near Faribault. On Apr 29, 1861, he joined Company G. He stood 5' 8 1/4" tall had a fair complexion, hazel eyes and light colored hair. On Sept 17, 1862, at the battle of Antietam, he was wounded in the face, "but not dangerously" as Ed Bassett recorded in his diary. George was also wounded at Hay Market, Virginia, on June 25, 1863. This was a small battle that occurred just before the two large armies met at Gettysburg. George was captured and taken to Libby Prison. While in prison he helped the Confederate doctors that worked there. It was this experience that gave him the idea of going to medical school some day. While there, he became friends with a Confederate captain. This officer arranged for his release and George was later exchanged for a Confederate prisoner at Camp Parole at Annapolis, Md. His parole was conditioned upon his not raising up arms against the Confederacy. George was transferred to the Invalid Corps on Dec 20, 1863, and served in the War Department in Washington DC. He was discharged on May 25, 1864. After his military service was over, he returned to his home at Horseshoe Lake. He married Lorrette Salisbury in Warsaw, MN, on Feb 24, 1865. They had three children, Sophronia, Nellie and Carrie. He decided to study medicine and enrolled in a college of homeopathic medicine. As a homeopathic doctor he believed in the principal that "through the like, disease is produced, and through the application of the like, it is cured". The closest comparison to be found in modern medicine is vaccination. By introducing the offending substance into the system the body learns to fight the disease and become desensitized to it. The west was growing and needed doctors. Under a government assignment, George went to the Idaho Territory in 1874. He packed up his family and traveled to the new job. His brother traveled with them. They traveled by train from Minneapolis to Corinne, Utah. From there they traveled by covered wagon to Salmon City, Idaho, where they settled. The Lemhi Indian Reservation in the Idaho Territory was established on Feb 12, 1875. According to government policy a doctor was to be assigned to the reservation. George was to be their doctor. He administered to the needs of the whites and Indians of the area for the next thirty years. Lorette died in Salmon City on May 24, 1881. It was a rough and wild time, and the scattered camps of miners and cowboys were as wild as the country. "About the worst trip I ever had," said the old doctor years later, "was a call by courier to Leesburg in mid-winter. Bill Luderman had been shot. I snowshoed over the mountain and learned that Luderman, who was nineteen years old and weighed 210 pounds, was building a ditch on placer ground he owned with a partner named Tim Conners. Conners would not do anything with the property, and became angry when Luderman built a ditch to convey water for mining, saying Luderman was 'trying to steal the ground'. That day the camp was having contests in ski jumping, a gala for all. The snow was covering the cabins of the camp, and Luderman was one of the contestants, leaping houses of the miners for the longest jump. Conners was carrying mail between Leesburg and Prairie Basis, thirty miles into the interior, and when he came in he was drunk, and began to quarrel with Luderman, threatening to kill him. A friend handed Luderman an old style rifle, while Conners carried a new gun. Conners got drunker and noisier, and finally shot at Luderman blowing away the thumb of his right hand, which so hindered him it was impossible for him to return the fire. Conners shot him again through the thigh before Luderman finally got the hammer of his gun pulled back, and shot Conners through the body. Return fire from Conners fatally wounded the young man, who was innocent of any wrong doing." Dr Kenney arrived and did all he could for the boy. He then had Luderman lashed to a toboggan and with men pulling the sled, they all returned to Salmon City. Unfortunately, Luderman did not survive the gunfight. Tim Conners did. The bullet glanced along his breast bone and exited out the the back. He was, however, later tried by a jury and hung. George was married three times. The second marriage was to Melissa Bryan and took place in Salmon. They had one child, Orpha. The 1910 roster of the veterans of the First Minnesota notes that George was still living in Salmon City, Idaho. He returned to Minnesota for a while. His third marriage was to Mabel McLain Smith in Minneapolis. He attended the reunions of the veterans of the First Minnesota from 1911 to 1918. This included the 1913 reunion of the First Minnesota at Gettysburg. The 1917 roster of the surviving veterans lists Dr George A Kenney's mailing address as 340 Andrew Bldg in Minneapolis. Perhaps at some time around 1918/1919 he returned to Idaho and his children who had established families there. George died at Salmon City, Idaho on Jan 2, 1931. He was 92 years, 4 months and 3 days old. At the time of his death there were only a few of his comrades from the First still alive. He was buried at the Salmon Cemetery and has a military headstone over his resting place. One obituary reported, "He always had to carry a six-shooter for protection, for he rode through a lot of wild country and was almost always alone. He performed hundreds of operations that doctors of today would deem impossible with the limited medical instruments he had." Another stated, "At times in below zero temperatures and near blizzard conditions he would ride thirty miles to treat sick people, while suffering from his war wounds which bothered him all his life. Many will long remember his services here, the suffering relieved and the loved ones saved." Sources: From Bull Run to Bristow Station, M H Bassett, p 22. Descriptive List of the Men of Company G, First Minnesota Association papers, MHS, box 2. Roster of the First Minnesota Infantry, 1910. Roster of the Survivors, First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, 1917. Pale Horse at Plum Run, Brian Leehan, MHS Press, 2002, p20. First Minnesota Association papers, July 22, 1931, MHS. Doctors With Buggies, Snoeshoes and Planes, Tamarack Books, 1993, pp 19-21. George A Kenney: "Just a Country Doctor", Shane Holloway. Dramatic Incidents in the Strenuous Life of Dr. George A Kenney, J. A. Herndon. Obituary, The Recorder Herald, Salmon, ID, Jan 7, 1931. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
