George S. Patton - Early Life and Family

Early Life and Family

George Smith Patton Jr. was born in San Gabriel, California in 1885, to George Smith Patton Sr. (1856–1927) and his wife Ruth Wilson (1861–1928), daughter of Benjamin Davis Wilson. Although he was actually the third George Smith Patton after his grandfather, he was called Junior. The Pattons were an affluent family of Scots-Irish and English descent.

As a boy, Patton read widely in the classics and military history. His father was a friend of John Singleton Mosby, the noted cavalry leader of the Confederate Army in the American Civil War who served first under J.E.B. Stuart and then as a guerrilla fighter. Patton grew up hearing Mosby's stories of his adventures, and longed to become a general himself.

Patton came from a military family, his ancestors including General Hugh Mercer of the American Revolution. His grand uncle, Waller T. Patton, died of wounds received in Pickett's Charge during the Battle of Gettysburg. John M. Patton and Isaac Patton, also his grand uncles, were colonels in the Confederate States Army. His grand uncle William T. Glassell was a Confederate States Navy officer. Hugh Weedon Mercer, a Confederate general, was his close relative. John M. Patton, a great-grandfather, was a lawyer and politician who had served as acting governor of Virginia.

Patton's paternal grandparents were Colonel George Smith Patton and Susan Thornton Glassell. His grandfather, born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, graduated from Virginia Military Institute (VMI), Class of 1852, second in a class of 24. After graduation, George Smith Patton studied law and practiced in Charleston, Virginia (now West Virginia). When the American Civil War broke out, he served in the 22nd Virginia Infantry of the Confederate States of America. Colonel George S. Patton, his grandfather, was killed during the Battle of Opequon. The Confederate Congress had promoted Colonel Patton to brigadier general; however, at the time, he had already died of battle wounds, so that promotion was never official.

Patton's grandfather left behind a namesake son, born in Charleston, Virginia (now West Virginia). The second George Smith Patton (born George William Patton in 1856, changing his name to honor his late father in 1868) was one of four children. Graduating from the Virginia Military Institute in 1877, Patton's father served as Los Angeles County, California, District Attorney and the first City Attorney for the city of Pasadena, California and the first mayor of San Marino, California. He was a Wilsonian Democrat.

His maternal grandparents were Benjamin Davis Wilson (December 1, 1811 to March 11, 1878), mayor of Los Angeles in 1851–1852 and the namesake of Southern California's Mount Wilson, and his second wife, Margaret Hereford. Wilson was a self-made man who was orphaned in Nashville, Tennessee, came to Alta California as a fur trapper and adventurer during the American Indian Wars before marrying Ramona Yorba, the daughter of a California land baron, Bernardo Yorba, and made his fortune through the wedding dowry, receiving Rancho Jurupa, settling what would become California's San Gabriel Valley, after the Mexican American War. He was part of the Hispanic-dominated Los Angeles society, who affectionately dubbed him "Benito," a name by which he was best known. Benjamin Wilson was also a well known Indian fighter who served as justice of the peace for the Mexican authorities and it was while hunting down renegade Indians that he discovered what is present day Big Bear, California which received that name because Wilson and his posse lassoed and killed over thirty grizzly bears while passing through.

The future General Patton married Beatrice Banning Ayer (January 12, 1886 – September 30, 1953), the daughter of wealthy textile baron Frederick Ayer, on May 26, 1910. They were childhood friends, since his father and her uncle, Phinneas Banning, were partners in the ownership of Catalina Island, where the families spent their summers. They had three children, Beatrice Smith (March 19, 1911 – October 24, 1952), Ruth Ellen Patton Totten (February 28, 1915 – November 25, 1993), who wrote The Button Box: A Loving Daughter's Memoir of Mrs. George S. Patton, and George Patton IV (December 24, 1923 – June 27, 2004), who followed in his father's footsteps, attending West Point and eventually rising to the rank of Major General as an armor officer in the United States Army.