General Smith

“ General Smith at once ordered the orderlies to sound the recall and retreat, intending to fall back quickly on the main command.
He was standing close beside a deep ravine as he gave the order. Knowing that the plan he proposed meant the complete annihilation of our force, I pushed my horse close to him.
"General," I said, "order your men into the ravine, dismount, and let number fours hold horses. Then you will be able to stand off the Indians. If you try to retreat to the main command you and every man under you will be killed before you have retreated a mile." ”

“ Smith's success appeared to be of the most important kind. He had carried heights [Pg 220] which were defended by very formidable works. He thought—and, indeed, we all thought for the moment—that his success gave us perfect command of the city and railroad. I went over the conquered lines with General Grant and the engineer officers, and they all agreed that the works were of the very strongest kind, more difficult even to take than Missionary Ridge at Chattanooga.
General Smith told us that the negro troops fought magnificently, the hardest fighting being done by them. ”

“ General Banks and the officers and men of the 19th corps, Eastern troops, exerted themselves to prevent these outrages, and that the perpetrators were the men of General A.J. Smith's command from Sherman's army. Educated at West Point, this General Smith had long served in the regular army of the United States, and his men were from the West, whose brave sons might well afford kindness to women and babes. ”

“ General Smith will debark his force at the White House tonight and start up the south bank of the Pamunkey at an early hour, probably at 3 A.M. in the morning. It is not improbable that the enemy, being aware of Smith's movement, will be feeling to get on our left flank for the purpose of cutting him off, or by a dash to crush him and get back before we are aware of it. Sheridan ought to be notified to watch the enemy's movements well out towards Cold Harbor, and also on the Mechanicsville road. ”

“ Smith, had been appointed Colonel of the Third Vermont Regiment, placed in command of the post, and undertook to correct the irregularity.
General Smith, a Vermonter by birth, a West-Pointer by education, was a soldier from spur to crown. In the demoralization which existed at the Chain Bridge, in his opinion, the occasional execution of a soldier would tend to enforce discipline, and in the end promote economy of life. ”

“ General Smith never regained my confidence as a soldier, though I still regard him as a most accomplished gentleman and a skillful engineer. Since the close of the war he has appealed to me to relieve him of that censure, but I could not do it, because it would falsify history.
Having assembled all my troops in and about Canton, on the 27th of February I left them under the command of the senior major-general, Hurlbut, with orders to remain till about the 3d of March, and then to come into Vicksburg leisurely ”

“ It is equally certain that this race, whatever its origin and however it may have been compounded and produced, has thriven and expanded in America, and that our country is indebted to it for not only its greatest scholars, divines and statesmen, but for its greatest soldiers as well. General Smith belonged by nature and education to both classes, and before this sketch is concluded I hope to show that in the highest walks of his chosen profession he had few equals and no superiors. ”

“ After all, generals and statesmen are but fallible men, the most magnanimous of whom are watchful of their rivals, and love not those who despitefully use them. In the vindication of his claims that he has rendered some service to his country, General Smith has made several valuable contributions [1] to current American history, and has in addition left a manuscript volume of personal memoirs upon which I shall draw as occasion offers, and which will doubtless be published in due time. ”

“ Military habits are at best not calculated to develop a mild and patient behavior, nor to beget a spirit of resignation to unjust or arbitrary treatment, especially if it comes from higher authority, and is not merited.
General Smith was the last man to lay claim to a saint-like character, but according to those who knew him best he possessed a just and even a charitable disposition, which made him fair towards his equals and most considerate towards his subordinates. ”

“ At the same time, General Smith marched with his division of infantry in the direction of Pilot Knob. 328His movement was noted by Price, who, wishing to prevent him from uniting his force with that of General Ewing, sent General Shelby to oppose him and if possible check his advance. General Smith, having discovered that the enemy was moving west and north, was ordered to keep between the rebel force and St. Louis; so he retired behind the Meramec, a little river a few miles south of our city. ”

“ General Smith and his aide, Captain Gibbs, went to Larkin's house, and I was at my old rooms at Dona Augustias. As we intended to go back to San Francisco by land and afterward to travel a good deal, General Smith gave me the necessary authority to fit out the party. There happened to be several trains of horses and mules in town, so I purchased about a dozen horses and mules at two hundred dollars a head, on account of the Quartermaster's Department, and we had them kept under guard in the quartermaster's corral. ”

“ General W. F. Smith, who had been promoted to the rank of major-general shortly after the battle of Chattanooga on my recommendation, had not yet been confirmed. I found a decided prejudice against his confirmation by a majority of the Senate, but I insisted that his services had been such that he should be rewarded. My wishes were now reluctantly complied with, and I assigned him to the command of one of the corps under General Butler. I was not long in finding out that the objections to Smith's promotion were well founded. ”

“ If General Rosecrans had actually conceived and worked out all the details of the plan, which cannot be successfully claimed, there would still be enough left to the credit of General Smith to immortalize him, but when Grant, Thomas and all the other officers who were present and in position to know what was actually done gave Smith the praise, not only for conceiving it, but carrying the plan into successful effect, there is but little room left for further controversy. ”

“ On October, 1863, he [General Smith] was transferred to the West, where he in turn became Chief Engineer of the Department of the Cumberland, on the staff of General George H. Thomas, and of the Military Division of the Mississippi, on the staff of General Grant. As such he devised the plan of operations by which the Army of the Cumberland was saved from starvation and capture at Chattanooga, and was duly credited with the same by General Thomas. ”

“ Here General Smith was further reinforced, and he found himself at the head of a body of men, European and native, sufficiently formidable to justify him in acting at once upon the offensive. Before General Smith could attack the new position of the sirdar, the latter was reinforced by a brigade of cavalry, twelve guns, and a small division of infantry, probably numbering about four thousand men. Finding himself at the head of a force numerically so superior to the British, the enterprising sirdar once more took the offensive ”

“ Everything about the camp looked like fighting: Napoleon guns planted on the road; Griffin’s battery in a field near at hand; mountain howitzers unlimbered; strong pickets and main-guards; the five thousand men all kept close to their camps, and two regiments, in spite of M‘Clellan’s order, engaged on the trenches, which were already mounted with field-guns. General Smith, like most officers, is a Democrat and strong anti-Abolitionist, and it is not too much to suppose he would fight any rather than Virginians. ”

“ General Smith will also reach you as soon as the enemy could, going by the way of Richmond.
The balance of the force will not be more than one day behind, unless detained by the whole of Lee's army, in which case you will be strong enough.
I wish you would direct the proper staff officers, your chief-engineer and your chief-quartermaster, to commence at once the collection of all the means in their reach for crossing the army on its arrival. If there is a point below City Point where a pontoon bridge can be thrown, have it laid. ”

“ It became perfectly evident that no family could live in San Francisco on such a salary as Uncle Sam allowed his most favored officials; so General Smith and Major Ogden concluded to send their families back to the United States, and afterward we men-folks could take to camp and live on our rations. The Second Infantry had arrived, and had been distributed, four companies to Monterey, and the rest somewhat as Stevenson's regiment had been. A. J. Smith's company of dragoons was sent up to Sonoma, whither General Smith had resolved to move our headquarters. ”

“ When General Smith saw his brigades hotly engaged, and some of them badly repulsed, he moved Hatton’s brigade and Colonel Lightfoot s Twenty-second North Carolina regiment, which had been in reserve, into action. General Smith accompanied these troops, and he bears testimony to the courage of their attack: "The troops moved across the field with alacrity, and the precision of their movement in line of battle has been seldom equaled, even on the parade ground." ”

“ I then returned to headquarters at Sonoma, in time to attend my fellow aide-de-camp Gibbs through a long and dangerous sickness, during which he was on board a store-ship, guarded by Captain George Johnson, who now resides in San Francisco. General Smith had agreed that on the first good opportunity he would send me to the United States as a bearer of dispatches, but this he could not do until he had made the examination of Oregon, which was also in his command. During the summer of 1849 there continued to pour into California a perfect stream of people. ”

“ Many a time have I seen General Smith, with a can of preserved meat in his hands, going toward the house, take off his hat on meeting a negro, and, on being asked the reason of his politeness, he would answer that they were the only real gentlemen in California. ”

“ To this small dimension had General Smith's army been reduced when he accepted the terms to which a reference has already been made. This reduction resulted from various causes, but it is believed was mainly due to the reluctance of a large part of his army to accept a parole, preferring to take whatever hazard belonged to absenting themselves without leave and continuing their character of belligerents. A few, but so far as I know very few, even went to the extent of expatriating themselves, and joined Maximilian in Mexico. ”

“ General Smith sent for me to meet him on his boat, and ordered me to push on under escort of the two gunboats, Lexington and Tyler, commanded by Captains Gwin and Shirk, United States Navy. I was to land at some point below Eastport, and make a break of the Memphis & Charleston Railroad, between Tuscumbia and Corinth. General Smith was quite unwell, and was suffering from his leg, which was swollen and very sore, from a mere abrasion in stepping into a small boat. This actually mortified, and resulted in his death about a month after, viz., April 25, 1862. ”

“ On the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 he accepted a commission as brigadier-general of Union volunteers, and found himself under the command of Grant, who had been his pupil at West Point. This difficult situation was made easy by Smith's loyalty to his young chief, and the old soldier led his division of raw volunteers with success at Fort Donelson. ”

“ But he lacks order, system, command, and is the very opposite of his successor, General John E. Smith, who, with much less intellect than Quinby, has a great deal better sense, with a firmness of character, a steadiness of hand, and a freedom from personal irritability and jealousy which must soon produce the happiest effect upon the division. Smith combines with these natural qualities of a soldier and commander a conscientious devotion not merely to the doing but also to the learning of his duty, which renders him a better and better general every day. ”

“ It is shown in General Smith’s official report that he had only one day’s rations when he left Tupelo, just as might have been reasonably expected. He abandoned his position fifteen hours after the repulse of the Confederates. He moved on the retreat much as he had on the march from Pontotoc to Harrisburg. Lee and Forrest having gathered up their shattered remnants attacked him at Old Town creek, where he made a stubborn resistance but only till his troops and trains could get well on the road. Clearly our men were in no condition to make anything more than a spiritless pursuit. ”

“ By the time I arrived the next morning the enemy was in force. An attack was ordered to be made at six o'clock that evening by the troops under Smith and the 2d and 9th corps. It required until that time for the 9th corps to get up and into position. The attack was made as ordered, and the fighting continued with but little intermission until six o'clock the next morning, and resulted in our carrying the advance and some of the main works of the enemy to the right (our left) of those previously captured by General Smith, several pieces of artillery, and over four hundred prisoners. ”