George Hunt Pendleton was a Representative and a Senator from Ohio. Nicknamed "Gentleman George" for his demeanor, he was the Democratic nominee for Vice President of the United States in the 1864 election, running as a peace Democrat with war Democrat George B. McClellan.

By 1864, the Union had grown weary of the long and bloody Civil War. Hundreds of thousands of the countries' best and bravest young men had fallen on the fields of Bull Run, Antietam, Shiloh, and countless more. Many began to think that the war was not worth it. The Republican Presidential Candidate Abraham Lincoln thought no price was too great. Unfortunately, after four long years of war, Lincoln's support was dropping fast, and people were looking for a way out of the war.

With this backdrop, In August of 1864, the Democratic Party chose General George B. McClellan to be their Presidential Candidate at the Chicago National Convention in 1864. The Democratic Party Platform presented a plan of "Compromise with the South", which became known as "The Chicago Platform". While on its surface the Chicago Platform was seductive in that it promised an immediate cessation of hostilities, and a restoration of the union. What was unsaid in the platform, but clearly implied, was that the "compromise" would be to agree to make permanent the institution of slavery in exchange for an end to the Civil War and restoration of the Union. This concept was rejected and they lost to Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.

George Pendleton was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of Nathanael Greene Pendleton, a Representative and a Senator from Ohio. He served in various public offices in Ohio and nationally before and after the war. He is best known as the principal author of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883. Appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Germany in 1885, and served until his death in Brussels, Belgium, November 24, 1889. He is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio.