[1] Root was born at Sheffield, Massachusetts, and was named after the German composer George Frideric Handel.

He worked for a while as a church organist in Boston, and from 1845 taught music at the New York Institute for the Blind, where he met Fanny Crosby, with whom he would compose fifty to sixty popular secular songs.

[1] He applied a version of Pestalozzi's teaching and was instrumental in developing mid- and late-19th century American musical education.

[5] On his return from Europe, Root began composing and publishing sentimental popular songs, a number of which achieved fame as sheet-music, including those with Fanny Crosby: The Hazel Dell, Rosalie the Prairie Flower, There's Music in the Air and others, which were, according to Root's New York Times obituary, known throughout the country in the antebellum period.

Root assisted William Bradbury in compiling The Shawm in 1853, a collection of hymn tunes and choral anthems, featuring the cantata Daniel: or the Captivity and Restoration.

[8] He wrote the first song concerning the war, The First Gun is Fired, only two days after the conflict began with the bombardment of Fort Sumter.

[4] After the war, he was elected as a 3rd Class (honorary) Companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.

According to Henry Stone, a Union war veteran recalling in the late 1880s: A glee club came down from Chicago, bringing with them the new song, 'We'll rally 'round the flag, boys', and it ran through the camp like wildfire.

I do not know whether Mr. Root knows what good work his song did for us there, but I hope so.Root was awarded the degree of Musical Doctor by the first University of Chicago in 1872.