George Hume Steuart (August 24, 1828 – November 22, 1903) was a planter in Maryland and an American military officer; he served thirteen years in the United States Army before resigning his commission at the start of the American Civil War. He joined the Confederacy and rose to the rank of brigadier general in the Army of Northern Virginia. Nicknamed "Maryland" to avoid verbal confusion with Virginia cavalryman J.E.B. Stuart, Steuart unsuccessfully promoted the secession of Maryland before and during the conflict. He began the war as a captain of the 1st Maryland Infantry, CSA, and was promoted to colonel after the First Battle of Manassas.

In 1862 he became brigadier general. After a brief cavalry command he was reassigned to infantry. Wounded at Cross Keys, Steuart was out of the war for almost a year while recovering from a shoulder injury. He was reassigned to Lee's army shortly before the Battle of Gettysburg. Steuart was captured at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, and exchanged in the summer of 1864. He held a command in the Army of Northern Virginia for the remainder of the war. Steuart was among the officers with Robert E. Lee when he surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House.

Steuart spent the rest of a long life operating a plantation in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. In the late nineteenth century, he joined the United Confederate Veterans and became commander of the Maryland division.

George Hume Steuart was born on August 24, 1828, into a family of Scottish ancestry in Baltimore. The eldest of nine children, he was raised at his family's estate in West Baltimore, known as Maryland Square, located near the present-day intersection of Baltimore and Monroe Streets. The Steuart family were wealthy plantation owners and were opposed to the abolition of slavery.

The Steuarts shared a long tradition of military service. He was the son of Major General George H. Steuart, of Anne Arundel County, Maryland, who served in the War of 1812, and with whom he is often confused. Baltimore residents referred to the father and son as "The Old General" and "The Young General." The elder Steuart inherited approximately 2,000 acres (8.1 km²) of land in around 1842, including a farm at Mount Steuart, and around 150 slaves, a high number in the Upper South.

Steuart was the grandson of Dr. James Steuart, a physician who served in the American Revolutionary War, and the great-grandson of Dr. George H. Steuart, a physician who emigrated to Maryland from Perthshire, Scotland, in 1721, and was lieutenant colonel of the Horse Militia under Governor Horatio Sharpe.

Steuart attended the United States Military Academy between July 1, 1844, and July 1, 1848, graduating 37th in the class of 1848, aged nineteen. Steuart was assigned as 2nd lieutenant to the 2nd Dragoons, a regiment of cavalry that served in the frontier fighting Indians. He served in the Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, in 1848, carried out frontier duty at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1849, and participated in an expedition to the Rocky Mountains in 1849. He actively participated in the US Army's Cheyenne expedition of 1856, the Utah War against the Mormons in 1857–1858, and the Comanche expedition of 1860.

He married Maria H. Kinzie, granddaughter of John Kinzie, founder of the city of Chicago, on January 14, 1858. The couple had met in Kansas and, once married, lived at Fort Leavenworth, although they were separated for long periods while Steuart was on campaign duty and stationed at distant frontier posts. They had two daughters: Marie Hunter, who was born in 1860 and went on to marry one Edmund Davis, and Ann Mary, born in 1864, who married one Rudolph Aloysius Leibig (1863–1895). The coming of war would place considerable strain on the Steuarts' marriage, leading to "unfortunate differences", as Maria's sympathies lay firmly with the Union cause.