George Peddy (August 22, 1892 - June 13, 1951) was an American attorney, military officer, and political figure from Texas.
A Democrat, He served in the Texas House of Representatives in 1917 and ran two high-profile but unsuccessful campaigns for the United States Senate (1922, 1948).
[1][2] His father died two months before Peddy's birth, and from a young age he helped support the family by working on the farm, which grew cotton, corn, sugarcane, and peanuts.
[7] After his military service, Peddy returned to college, this time attending courses at the University of Texas School of Law.
[1] He then spent two years as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, where he had responsibility for mail fraud prosecutions.
[1] Mayfield had the support of the resurgent Ku Klux Klan, and anti-Klan activists in the Democratic Party including Peddy were unable to have him stripped of the nomination.
[1] Peddy agreed to run against him as the candidate of the "Independent Democrats", members of the party who opposed the Klan.
[1] The Texas Republican Party also backed Peddy, but was unable to have him included on the general election ballot as their official nominee.
[1] Commissioned as a major, he served in Dallas as a member of the Eighth Service Command, where he recruited individuals to join the Army so they could become qualified in the Civil Affairs field and take part in rebuilding activities in Europe after their training.
[1] He attained the rank of lieutenant colonel as a Civil Affairs officer, and his assignments included serving as deputy military governor of Frankfurt, Germany after the war ended in 1945.
[1] In 1921, Peddy married Gertrude Irwin, who served as the private secretary for Vinson & Elkins partner James A.
[1] In 2016, the University of Texas at Austin completed cataloguing Peddy's papers, including letters to his wife that detailed his wartime experiences.