George Forsyth was born in Muncy, Pennsylvania in 1837, George A. Forsyth enlisted as a private in the Chicago Volunteer Dragoons in 1861.He rose through the ranks quickly, becoming a major in 1863. He served as aide-de-camp to Major Phillip H. Sheridan, and by the end of the Civil War had been promoted to Brevet Brigadier General of the Volunteers. In 1866 he received a commission as a major into the 9th Cavalry of the U.S. Army, and in that same year fought and defeated the celebrated Cheyenne warrior Roman Nose at the Battle of Beecher Island in present-day Yuma County, Colorado. In 1885 he married Natalie Sedgwick Beaumont, and retired from the Army in 1890. Forsyth died in Rockport, Massachusetts in 1915.