George Varney (1834–1911) was a colonel in the Union Army during the American Civil War and was awarded the grade of brevet brigadier general, United States Volunteers, in 1867 for his gallant service at the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862.
Colonel Varney led his regiment along an unfinished railroad cut to get closer to the stone wall on Marye's Heights.
[4] Major Daniel F. Sargent assumed command of the regiment and led it out of the cut where it disintegrated almost immediately under withering rifle and artillery fire from the Confederates behind the stone wall on Marye's Heights.
[6] Varney lived the rest of his life in Bangor and is one of eight union generals buried at Mount Hope Cemetery.
Varney's letters and other papers were discovered by a descendant, Robert W. P. Cutler, in 1980 and published in the book The Tin Box (Morris Pub., 1999)