George Hodge was born in Fleming County, Kentucky, and attended the U.S. Naval Academy. He was promoted to lieutenant but resigned his commission to become an attorney and a member of the Kentucky state legislature. He joined the Confederate Army as a private in 1861 and was soon chosen to represent Kentucky in the Provisional Confederate Congress and in the First Confederate Congress. He was promoted to captain and assistant adjutant general in the First Kentucky Brigade, then promoted to major for gallantry at the Battle of Shiloh. In 1865, his commission as brigadier general was approved. After the Civil War, he continued his law practice in Newport and was a member of the Kentucky State Senate from 1873-1877. He died and was buried in 1892 in Florida, where he had moved to become an orange farmer, and he was re-interred here in 1903.