George W. Madden, carpenter, was born in Windom County, Vt., Jan. 7, 1828, a son of Michael and Electa (Johnson) Madden; the former, a native of Ireland, served on a man-of-war ship during the war of 1812. There was a family of fifteen children, eleven of whom lived to be adults. The subject of this memoir, the seventh son, was reared on a farm until sixteen years of age, when he was apprenticed to the trade of wagon-maker; not liking the business he afterward learned the trade of a carpenter and joiner. On the 12th day of April, 1861, the day the "Star of the West" was fired upon, he was the first to give his services to Uncle Sam in Clayton County, enlisting in the Third Iowa Volunteer Infantry, Company C, for three months. Word being received from the War Department to enlist men for three years only he changed his enlistment at that time, at the expiration of which he re-enlisted in the same company, serving four years and three months altogether. Some of the principal engagements he participated in were those of Pittsburg Landing, siege of Corinth, siege of Vicksburg, Jackson, Miss., Atlanta, and was with Sherman on his march to the sea. During the march he was taken sick at Goldsborough, N.C., and was sent to the hospital at Troy, N.Y., thence to Bedelo Island, City Point, Va.; thence to Louisville, Ky., where he joined his regiment and was discharged at Davenport, Ia., July 20, 1865. In 1863 he married Martha Thompson, of Delaware County, Ohio, where she was born April 8, 1840. By this union there are three daughters--A. Lillian, Effie M. and Cora B. source: History of Clayton County, Iowa, 1882, p. 994-995 |