In 1846 he moved to New York City for business, where in 1850 he founded the Bank of the Republic on Wall Street and served as its president.

In December 1864, with Union General Sherman's troops approaching Savannah, Lamar took President Lincoln's loyalty oath (sometimes called the Proclamation of Amnesty) to uphold the United States Constitution, in return for the promise that all his property rights would be restored.

After the war he was arrested and held for three months in Washington, D.C., as a suspect in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

Born in 1798 near Augusta, Georgia (likely in the Sand Hills area), he was the third of twelve children of Basil Lamar and Rebecca Kelly.

Some 128 persons died in the accident, including their three daughters and two of three sons, and a niece,[2] along with numerous other passengers and crew.

[2] Lamar's business activities in Savannah included banking, ship owning, cotton factoring, insurance, and warehousing.

[4] Around this time he became worried about his eldest son, Charles Augustus Lafayette Lamar, whom he had appointed to look after his business affairs in Georgia.

Lamar arranged loans, printed bonds and, as the war neared, buying semi-obsolete rifles from the federal arsenal for the states of Georgia and South Carolina.

Lamar returned to Savannah by early 1861, where he was active in banking and re-established himself in the business and social life of the city.

When Savannah fell, it is estimated that 10% of the cotton stores seized in the city by Union General Sherman belonged to Gazaway Lamar.

After the war ended, Lamar was arrested and held for three months as a suspect in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

After he was allowed to return to Savannah, he worked to re-establish his business and reclaim his confiscated cotton, which was held in warehouses in Georgia and Florida.

Six months after winning his final appeal for compensation, Lamar died in Brooklyn, New York at age 76 on October 5, 1874.

His body was returned to the home of his daughter Mrs. Robert Soutter in Alexandria, Virginia, where the funeral was held.

[8] Early in the 21st century an old, rolled-up telegraph message was found and eventually given to a museum in Charleston, South Carolina.

Dated April 14, 1861, the telegram was from the Governor of South Carolina to Gazaway Bugg Lamar in New York.