As chairman of the Senate Health Committee he helped establish the State Tuberculosis Sanatorium at Saranac Lake.

On June 6, 1863, he was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant and volunteered to serve with the newly formed 34th USCT Infantry Regiment made up of black slaves from South Carolina.

[3] After the war, Brush became a Companion of the Massachusetts Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.

The 34th Infantry Regiment was ordered on May 24, 1864, on an expedition to Asheepo River, South Carolina to burn a railroad trestle across a marsh at that point.

About 400 members of the black regiment were loaded onto the troop steamer Boston, including 1st Lieutenant George W. Brush and the men of his company.

Lieutenant Brush quickly assembled four volunteers - David Lewis Gifford, William Downey, Patrick Scanlan, and John Duffey - and began transporting men from the Boston to shore with the one small boat available.

His Medal of Honor citation reads as follows "voluntarily commanded a boat crew, which went to the rescue of a large number of Union soldiers on board the stranded steamer Boston, and with great gallantry succeeded in conveying them to shore, being exposed during the entire time to heavy fire from a Confederate battery".

Dr. Brush died on November 16, 1927, and is buried in the Huntington Rural Cemetery in Suffolk County in Long Island, New York.