“Old Blood and Guts”, his father and grandfather were all graduates of the Virginia Military Institute. What do you think the Patton’s would say to the school administration if they knew that their alma mater (VMI) no longer allowed the playing of Dixie…? Maybe the words on the photo above give us a clue….

General George Patton's 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. 

Descended from Hugh Weedon Mercer, who had been killed in the Battle of Princeton during the American Revolution and whose grandson had been a Confederate general during the War for Southern Independence, his paternal grandfather was George Smith Patton who commanded the 22nd Virginia Infantry and was killed in the Third Battle of Winchester (Opequon), while his great-uncle Waller Tazewell Patton was killed in Pickett’s Charge during the Battle of Gettysburg. Patton, of southern aristocratic stock with a long pedigree of Confederate warriors behind him, was a cavalryman whose career might be described best as “a prince asserting his heritage”.