In 1856, at age twenty-three, George Bradley moved from Bangor, Maine, where he practiced law, to Belle Plaine, Minnesota. The next year he was elected to the state House of Representatives, and was appointed President pro tem. at its first session in December 1857.
After the War Between the States broke out, he helped form the Minnesota Seventh Infantry Regiment. He served from August 1862 to August 1865, when he was mustered out holding the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. His official reports of the Seventh's participation in the Battle of Nashville in December 1864 and the Campaign of Mobile in March and April 1865 are posted in the Appendix.
Now a civilian, he moved to Minneapolis and formed a law partnership with F. R. E. Cornell. It was dissolved when Cornell was elected to the Minnesota Supreme Court in November 1874. He then formed a firm with H. G. O. Morrison, but it ended with his sudden death as a result of a fall on February 11, 1879. Meeting a week later, the Hennepin County Bar Association passed three resolutions in his honor, one describing him as "ever self-reliant, courteous to all, generous to the younger members of the profession, he possessed in a remarkable degree all those endearing qualities of mind and heart, which constitute the true character of the true gentleman, the true friend, the eminent counsellor, and distinguished and successful legislator."
This is one of a series of biographical sketches of Minnesota lawyers who served in the Civil War.
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