Ellen G. White: The Progressive Years: 1862-1876 (vol. 2)

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From Union Soldier to General Conference President

[Account based primarily on G. A. Irwin obituary, The Review and Herald, June 5, 1913.]

We pause to mention one young man from Ohio—not a Seventh-day Adventist—who at the outset of the conflict enlisted in the forces of the North, George A. Irwin. His mother died when he was 9, and after being shifted around among various relatives, at 17 he enlisted in the Union Army for three years. In 1864 he reenlisted and served until the end of the war. 2BIO 109.1

In 1863, serving under General Grant, he participated in the siege of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River. Later, fighting under Sherman in his seventeenth engagement, Irwin was captured near Atlanta, Georgia. He was consigned to the prisoner-of-war stockade at Andersonville. Under unbelievable conditions, thirteen thousand Union soldiers died there during the war, but George survived. At Andersonville a fellow soldier gave him a book, Baxter's Saints’ Everlasting Rest, which led to his conversion. 2BIO 109.2

Freed at war's end after seven months of imprisonment, Irwin took up farming in Ohio. He married and joined the Congregational Church, and later the Methodist Church. 2BIO 109.3

When his son, Charles (C. W.), was ready for school, George gave a corner of his farmland for a school; a little later, in this school building, he heard and accepted the third angel's message. He soon became a leader of the Adventists in his home district, and then treasurer of the Ohio Conference. Then, with a four-year Adventist background, Irwin was elected president of the Ohio Conference. 2BIO 109.4

In 1895 he was called to take charge of the work of the church in the Southern States, and in 1897 was elected president of the General Conference, a position he filled for four years. On the reorganization of the General Conference in 1901, Irwin was followed in the General Conference by A. G. Daniells. Through the next twelve years Irwin filled several important positions of leadership in Australia and North America. His son, Charles, in later years served as secretary of the General Conference Department of Education. 2BIO 109.5