George Collier Remey was born August 10, 1841 in Burlington, Iowa, the second son of William Butler and Eliza Smith (Howland) Remey. He was a descendant of Abram Remy, a Huguenot who came to Virginia in 1700, and of John Howland, a pilgrim who came in the Mayflower.
He entered the United States Naval Academy on September 20, 1855, the youngest and also the smallest of his class, and was graduated fourth among the twenty members of the class of 1859.
A cruise in the Hartford to China and Japan preceded active Civil War service. He was in the gunboat Marblehead, operating in Virginia waters during the Peninsular Campaign from March to July, 1862, and afterward on the Charleston blockade.
In April 1863, he became executive of the Canandaigua; commanded for ten days the Marblehead during attacks on Fort Wagner; and had charge of a battery of heavy naval guns on Morris Island from August 23 to September 7.
On the night of September 7-8 he commanded the second division in an ill-fated boat attack on Fort Sumter. His boat, the only one of his divisions to make shore, was smashed by gun-fire on landing, and about an hour and a half later Remey and his party were compelled to surrender under the walls of the fort. Of the total force of about 450 only 104 got ashore, and all these were captured. With other officers taken in the attack he was imprisoned during the next thirteen months in the jail at Columbia, South Carolina, making one almost successful attempt at escape by a tunnel under the prison walls. After his exchange he was executive in the De Soto, fitting out at Baltimore, till the close of the war. He was one of six officers assigned to the White House for two days after Lincoln's assassination, and acted as aide to Farragut at the President's funeral.
From then until the Spanish-American War his service followed routine lines, including duty off Chile during the Spanish bombardment of Valparaiso in 1866, as second in command of a surveying expedition in Tehuantepec in 1870-71, and in the Mediterranean during the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882. His first command in the grade of captain (1885) was the flagship Charleston, Pacific Squadron, 1889-92. At the outbreak of the War with Spain he was called from the command of the Portsmouth navy yard to take charge of the naval base at Key West, Florida. This duty carried heavy responsibilities, including the supply and repair of all naval forces in Cuban waters, the command of vessels within the administration of the base, which included the Dry Tortugas, and the organization of the convoy for Shafter's army to Cuba. Shortly after peace was concluded he resumed command of the Portsmouth yard.
He was made rear admiral in November 1898, and assumed command of the Asiatic station in April 1900, a highly important assignment in view of the Philippine warfare and the Boxer uprising in China. In his flagship Brooklyn he was off Taku from July to October 1900, during the march on Peking, and in 1901 he visited Australia at the opening of its first parliament. After a year as chairman of the Lighthouse Board, he retired August 10, 1903, and lived subsequently in Washington, D. C. , and Newport, Rhode Island.
He died in Washington and was buried at Burlington, Iowa.
He was married on July 8, 1873, to Mary Josephine, daughter of Charles Mason, and had two daughters and four sons.
