George Henry Sharpe (February 26, 1828 – January 13, 1900) was an American lawyer, soldier, Secret Service officer, diplomat, politician, and Member of the Board of General Appraisers.

He served as Secretary of the United States Legation in Vienna, Austrian Empire from 1851 to 1852 and then resumed his law practice in New York from 1854 to 1861.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Sharpe served as a captain in a New York regiment for three months and then returned to civilian life.

In 1862, at the request of the Governor of New York, he raised a new regiment and went back into service as a colonel with the Army of the Potomac.

In 1863, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker selected Sharpe to command the Bureau of Military Information (BMI), the Army of the Potomac's intelligence operation.

After the war, Sharpe mixed his law practice and the pursuit of his interests in New York state Republican Party politics with several stints in Federal government service.

[4][5] After the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in April, the regiment served on guard duty at Annapolis and Baltimore until July.

His company was dissolved back in New York for lack of troops at the end of August and Sharpe returned to civilian life.

However, in July 1862, when President Lincoln issued a call for volunteers, the governor asked Sharpe to help raise a new regiment.

[12] By the time of the Army of the Potomac’s next major operation at Chancellorsville, in late April, Sharpe had obtained the service of three additional analysts and 24 scouts and guides.

As the bureau’s commander, Sharpe deployed scouts and enlisted civilian agents to report on activities behind enemy lines.

In 1867, however, based on his knowledge of Sharpe's service as an intelligence officer, Secretary of State William H. Seward, asked Sharpe to become a special agent of the U.S. State Department and go to Europe to locate and investigate Americans who might have been involved in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

Sharpe oversaw the census that demonstrated that the Democratic victories in the 1868 elections had been due to fraud—a form of ballot box stuffing.

[24] In 1873, Grant appointed Sharpe Surveyor of the Port of New York, under Collector of Customs Chester A. Arthur.

By 1877, however, attitudes toward the civil service and political patronage had shifted and President Rutherford Hayes asked Arthur and his principal subordinates, Surveyor Sharpe and Naval Officer Alonzo B. Cornell to resign.

He lost the party's nomination for Speaker to Thomas G. Alvord in January 1882 (the Speakership was won by the Democrats, who held the majority in the Assembly) and he continued to be vilified by Conkling supporters.

Sharpe's fortunes rose again in Washington, however, with Chester Arthur in the White House after Garfield's assassination the year before.

[30] At the Republican state convention in September, party leaders were fiercely divided over a challenge to Governor Alonzo B. Cornell and the Stalwarts' ultimate nomination of Charles J. Folger to replace him was obtained partly by fraud.

[41] In July 1884, President Arthur appointed Sharpe head of the U.S. Commission to Central and South America, with the rank of Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary.

The defeat essentially ended Sharpe's career in electoral politics, although he remained active with the party for some time.

[50] In January 1889, Sharpe was appointed president of the National Bank of Rondout and he gave up his law practice to focus on those duties.

[45][51] While focusing on his political career, former Maj. Gen. Sharpe also remained in touch with the Union Army veterans he served with during the war.

He held executive positions in several veterans organizations: Corresponding Secretary for the Army of the Potomac Society,[52] member of the Executive Committee of the One Hundred and Twentieth Regimental Union,[53] director in the Third Army Corps union,[54] Vice President of the 120th New York in the Second Brigade New Jersey Volunteers,[55] and commander of the New York Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.

[58] In 1896, Sharpe commissioned and paid for a monument to the 120th NY built in the churchyard of the Old First Reformed Dutch Church in Kingston.

[59] Sharpe was nominated by President Benjamin Harrison on July 2, 1890, to the Board of General Appraisers, to a new seat created by Congress (26 Stat.

Sharpe's cases involved matters from carpet wools and Cuban tobacco leaf to oils, paints, and chemicals and the plumes in women's hats.