There was a possibility at one time of Judge George Goldthwaite becoming a military man. After spending his younger years in Boston, where he had as school fellows such men as Charles Sumner and R. C. Winthrop, Goldthwaite became a cadet at the military academy at West Point. Among his classmates at the academy was General (Bishop) Polk, while in more advanced classes were R. E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston and Jefferson Davis. Goldthwaite was within one year of the completion of his course when he became involved in a hazing fracas and quietly left the institution, as he knew what the consequences would be. At that time, 1826, Alabama was in the infancy of statehood, and he a youth of seventeen. His brother was at that time a rising young lawyer at Montgomery and the younger brother entered on the study of law under his elder brother. The thoroughness of mental drill to which he had been subjected in the Boston schools, as well as at the military academy, made his headway in law comparatively easy, and at the end of the year, when he was but eighteen, he was admitted to practice and opened an independent office at Monticello, Pike County. The youthful lawyer did not lack for clients and he remained in this rural village for a period of several years, after which he returned to Montgomery, where his ability became widely recognized. In 1843 he offered for the judgeship of the circuit court against the incumbent of the bench, Judge Abraham Martin, and was elected. In 1850 he was opposed by Jefferson Jackson, a gentleman of prominence at the bar, and was again elected. In 1852 Judge Goldthwaite was chosen a justice on the supreme bench, and four years later, when Judge Chilton resigned, Judge Goldthwaite became chief justice, but after serving in this capacity just thirteen days he suddenly resigned and resumed the practice of the law. For three years after the beginning of the Civil War Judge Goldthwaite served as adjutant general of the state under the appointment of Governor Moore. Just after the close of the war he was elected again to the position of circuit judge, but in 1866, under the reconstruction acts of congress, he was removed. In 1870 he was elected to the United States senate from Alabama. This brief and cursory survey of an eventful life affords but a bare hint of the marvelous activity and usefulness with which the career of Judge Goldthwaite was crowned.