George W . Brush George Washington Brush ( October 4 , 1842 – November 18 , 1927 ) was an American soldier , dentist , physician and politician . He served as a captain of a black company in the 34th Infantry Regiment U . S . Colored Troops in the Union Army during the American Civil War and received the Medal of Honor . After the war he became first a dentist and then a physician . He was elected to the New York State Assembly and then the State Senate . As chairman of the Senate Health Committee he helped establish the State Tuberculosis Sanatorium at Saranac Lake . Early life . George W . Brush was born in West Hills , Huntington , New York in 1842 . He was born in the family farmhouse that is still standing and occupied today . He left to live in Brooklyn at the age of 17 . He worked in a dry goods store for $ 2 . 00 per week . Two years later when the Civil War began he was among the first to volunteer . Civil War . On August 13 , 1861 George joined the 48th New York Regiment as a private and fought at the capture of Fort Walker and Fort Beauregard . On June 6 , 1863 he was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant and volunteered to serve with the newly formed 34th USCT Infantry Regiment made up of black slaves from South Carolina . He was among the first group of white officers to command a unit of all black troops . By 1865 he was a captain commanding a full company of the 34th Regiment . Medal of Honor . The 34th Infantry Regiment was ordered on May 24 , 1864 on an expedition to Asheepo River , South Carolina to burn a railroad trestle across a marsh at that point . About 400 members of the black regiment were loaded onto the troop steamer " Boston " , including 1st Lieutenant George W . Brush and the men of his company . The men had been ferried out to the " Boston " by small boats and one was fastened to the ships stern . Sailing down the Asheepo River in fog and darkness the ship became stranded upon an oyster bed . The Confederates planted a battery of guns on the river bank and began shelling the " Boston " . Lieutenant Brush quickly assembled four volunteers and began transporting men from the " Boston " to shore with the one small boat available . His Medal of Honor citation reads as follows " voluntarily commanded a boat crew , which went to the rescue of a large number of Union soldiers on board the stranded steamer " Boston " , and with great gallantry succeeded in conveying them to shore , being exposed during the entire time to heavy fire from a Confererate battery " . Instrumental in attaining the Medal of Honor for Lieutenant Brush were the efforts of the unit ' s Chaplain Homer W . Moore . Dentist and physician . After the war Brush returned to Brooklyn and became a dentist . After several years as a dentist he entered Long Island College Hospital Medical School from which he graduated in 1876 . He had a long and successful medical practice in Brooklyn . State legislator . Dr . Brush was very active in Brooklyn civic and political affairs . He was a member of the New York State Assembly ( Kings Co . , 7th D . ) in 1895 ; and a member of the New York State Senate ( 4th D . ) from 1896 to 1898 , sitting in the 119th , 120th and 121st New York State Legislature s . He was chairman of the Senate Health Committee and helped to establish the N . Y . State Tubercolosis Sanitarium at Saranac Lake . Family life and death . George Brush had married Alice Bowers in Huntington in 1865 while home on leave . Alice sailed from New York to Florida to join Brush seven weeks after the wedding . The steamship was caught in a storm off Cape Hatteras and sank with all on board being lost . In 1868 Brush married Marie Bowers , Alice ' s younger sister . They were married for fifty - eight years and had one child , a son named Herbert . Dr . Brush died on November 16 , 1927 and is buried in the Huntington Rural Cemetery in Suffolk County in Long Island , New York . http : / / www . cmohs . org .