Captain George Collings
Captain George Collings was born in Highland County, Ohio, September 28, 1839. He attended school at West Union from his sixth year until the opening of the Civil War. He enlisted in Company D. 24th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, June 13, 1861, and was made Second Sergeant at the organization of the company. He was made Second Lieutenant on October 7, 1862, and First Lieutenant on April 21, 1864. and was transferred to Company D, 18th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, April 27, 1864. He was made Captain, December 21, 1864. He was placed on detached duty as Acting Commissary of Musters, May 13, 1865, and stationed at Chattanooga until October 9, 1865, when he was mustered out. He participated in the following battles: Cheat Mountain, West Virginia: Greenbrier, West Virginia: Shiloh, Tennessee: Corinth, Miss.: Perryville, Kentucky: Stone River, Tennessee; Woodbury, Tennessee; Tullahoma Campaign: Chickamauga, Georgia; Lookout Mountain, Tenn.: Mission Ridge, Tennessee; Ringgold. Georgia; Buzzard Roost, Georgia: Nashville, Tenn.; and Decatur, Alabama. At the battle of Murfreesboro, he was shot by a musket ball which plowed a groove across the top of his head from front to rear. He fell and was left on the field for dead. His own command was driven back and a burying party found him and was about to bury him. One of the party claimed he was not dead and he was given the benefit of the doubt and sent to the hospital He did not become conscious for three weeks, and in the meantime, his companions reported him dead and buried. A. C. Smith wrote his obituary and it was published in the West Union Scion. Captain Collings had the pleasure of reading it after he recovered sufficiently, and he is the only man who ever lived in Adams County who has read his own obituary.
After the war, he returned to Adams County and studied law under the tuition of E. P. Evans. He was admitted to the practice in the Fall of 1866. In the same Fall, he was elected Probate Judge of Adams County to fill an unexpired term to February, 1867, and also the Fall Term from February, 1867, to February, 1870.
On February 25, 1867, he was married to Miss Harriet A. Bradford (as Probate Judge, issuing the license himself). He remained at West Union in the practice of the law until October, 1871, when he removed to Marengo, Iowa. When he reached there, he found the county in the threes of a county seat contest, and as he had just passed through one in Adams County, he fled and located at Indianola, Iowa, where he spent the remainder of his life. At Indianola, he held the office of Justice of the Peace and County Attorney. The hardships of his military life brought on pulmonary consumption of which he died on July 24, 1882. He died while holding the position of County Attorney. He was of a quiet and retiring disposition. While he showed himself fully competent for all the offices he ever held, yet he was not a man to push himself forward. He had a great deal of dry humor and was a very pleasant and agreeable companion.
Politically, he was always a Republican. His death was due as much to his army service as if he had died in battle. He had one son who died an infant. Ralph, his second son, resides with his mother in Indianola, Iowa.
From History of Adams County, Ohio from its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time - by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers - West Union, Ohio - Published by E. B. Stivers - 1900