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HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 
 LIFE AND SERVICES 
 
 OF 
 
 WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 Major General, United States Volunteers 
 
 in 
 
 THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 A SKETCH 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES HARRISON WILSON 
 Major General, U. S.V. 
 
 [ The John M. Rogers Press ) 
 Wilmington, Del. J 
 
 1904 S 
 

 
 3GJa'05 
 
12T 
 
 /.,:, • ////■/■<//■ • //////// 
 
 1L 
 
 Heroes of the Great Conflict 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 
 
 WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 MAJOR GENERAL, U. S. V. 
 
 WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH, 
 the subject of this sketch, grad- 
 uated at West Point in 1845, 
 fourth in a class of forty-one members. 
 He died at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 
 on the 28th of February, 1903 in his 
 seventy-ninth year. 
 
 The publication of the Rebellion 
 Records puts within the reach of every 
 student the official reports of the various 
 campaigns and battles of the Great Con- 
 flict, but something more is needed. 
 They deal but slightly with men's mo- 
 tives, and still less with their personal 
 peculiarities. They give only here and 
 there any idea whatever of the origin of 
 the plans of campaigns or battles and 
 rarely any adequate description of the 
 topography of the theatre of war, or of 
 the difficulties to be overcome. They 
 describe but superficially the organiza- 
 tion, equipment, armament and supply 
 
6 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 of the troops, and leave their trials, hard- 
 ships and extraordinary virtues largely to 
 the imagination. They are entirely si- 
 lent as to the qualities and idiosyncrasies 
 of the leaders. Neither romance nor per- 
 sonal adventure finds any place within 
 their pages, and fine writing is entirely 
 foreign to their purpose. They are for 
 the most part dry and unemotional in 
 style, and are put together so far as pos- 
 sible chronologically in the order of their 
 importance without the slightest refer- 
 ence to literary effect. While nothing is 
 more untrustworthy generally than per- 
 sonal recollections of events which took 
 place over a third of a century ago, those 
 which are supported by letters and diaries 
 are of inestimable value in construing 
 and reconciling the official reports. But 
 this is not all. The daily journals and 
 other contemporaneous publications are 
 quite important and cannot be safely left 
 out of account. All must be taken into 
 consideration before the final distribution 
 of praise and blame is made, or the last 
 word is written in reference to events or 
 to the great actors who controlled or 
 took part in them. 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT J 
 
 In the list of the most notable men 
 of the day the name of Major General 
 William Farrar Smith must be re- 
 corded. He belonged at the outbreak 
 of the Civil War, to that distinguished 
 group of which Lee on the Southern 
 side and McClellan on the Northern, 
 were the center. Joseph E. Johnston 
 and William B. Franklin were his most 
 intimate friends, and I but recall what 
 was then the popular belief when I state 
 that they were widely regarded as the 
 best educated and the most brilliant offi- 
 cers in the service. They were in middle 
 life, in the full enjoyment of their pow- 
 ers, and it was the confident opinion of 
 those who knew them best, that they 
 were sure to become conspicuous leaders 
 in the impending conflict. Great things 
 were expected of them, and in this the 
 world was not disappointed. They all 
 reached high rank and great distinction, 
 but only one of the group was fortunate 
 enough to enroll himself amongst the 
 world's great commanders. Johnston 
 rose to the leadership of an independent 
 army but failed to win a great victory or 
 to secure the entire approval of his su- 
 
8 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 periors. Franklin was without doubt a 
 corps commander of sound judgment and 
 unshakable courage, but he also failed to 
 achieve the success that was expected of 
 him, and to secure the support and con- 
 fidence that his high character fully en- 
 titled him to look for from his Govern- 
 ment. Smith who was not inferior to 
 the ablest of his friends and contem- 
 poraries, in the art and science of war, 
 had a career of great usefulness, in which 
 he rendered services of extraordinary 
 value and brilliancy but which ended in 
 disappointment and unhappiness. 
 
 He was however not only a conspicu- 
 ous officer connected with important 
 events throughout his life, and especially 
 during the Great Conflict, but he was 
 a singularly virile and independent char- 
 acter who exerted great influence over all 
 with whom he came in contact. He was 
 strong, self-contained and deliberate in 
 speech, and having been an industrious 
 student and an acute thinker all his life, 
 his opinions always commanded atten- 
 tion and respect. It so happened that 
 his services brought him into the very 
 focus of events on more than one occa- 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 
 
 sion. It so happened also that I was 
 more or less intimate with him to the 
 time of his death, from the date of my 
 entry into the Military Academy, where 
 I had the good fortune to receive his in- 
 struction in mathematics. I first met him 
 in the field, while I was serving tempo- 
 rarily on the staff of General McClellan, 
 and he was commanding a division in the 
 Antietam campaign, and next at Chatta- 
 nooga, whither I was sent in advance of 
 General Grant to prepare for his coming, 
 after the disastrous battle of Chicka- 
 mauga. 
 
 Shortly afterwards Smith was trans- 
 ferred to Grant's staff as Chief Engineer, 
 and we messed and served together, in 
 the closest intimacy throughout that cam- 
 paign, and until I was assigned to duty 
 in the War Department in charge of the 
 Cavalry Bureau. I saw him frequently 
 while I was commanding a division of 
 cavalry and he an army corps in Grant's 
 overland campaign against Richmond. 
 During the latter period we were exceed- 
 ingly intimate, and when we were not 
 serving together an active correspond- 
 ence was kept up between us. It is a 
 
IO GENERALWILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 source of pleasure and satisfaction to 
 me that this intimacy became still closer 
 after General Smith was appointed agent 
 of the United States and assigned as 
 a civil engineer to the charge of the 
 river and harbor works on the Delaware 
 and Maryland peninsula, with his office 
 at Wilmington, Delaware. This long 
 and close intimacy, extending as it did 
 over the greater part of a lifetime, has 
 afforded me an ample opportunity of 
 studying his character and familiarizing 
 myself with the facts of his military 
 career, and with the point of view from 
 which he considered his relations to the 
 men and events with which he was so 
 conspicuously connected. 
 
 A man of great purity of character 
 and great singleness of purpose, he took 
 an intense interest in whatever his hand 
 found to do. He felt a deep and abid- 
 ing concern in all public and professional 
 questions, and was both a tender and 
 affectionate friend and an unrelenting 
 enemy. He was a bold and resolute 
 thinker who indulged in no half way 
 measures. The bolder his plans and the 
 more dangerous his undertakings, the 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT II 
 
 more careful was he in working out the 
 details, and the more attentive was he 
 in supervising their execution. He left 
 nothing to chance, but provided for every 
 possible contingency with infinite care 
 and yet he was a rapid worker. Meth- 
 odical in his habits, untiring in his appli- 
 cation and deliberate in his manner, he 
 was always ready, always on time and 
 nearly always successful. 
 
 In following him through the trials 
 and vicissitudes of his active life it will 
 be seen that he was one of the most in- 
 teresting personalities of his day. He 
 played a bold and distinguished part in 
 the war for the Union, quite out of pro- 
 portion to the actual command which 
 fell to his lot. Indeed, it may well be 
 doubted if any other single officer ex- 
 erted a more potential or beneficial in- 
 fluence than he did upon the plans and 
 operations in which he took part. While 
 he was austere and reserved in manners, 
 he was most highly esteemed by all with 
 whom he served, and received unstinted 
 praise for his suggestions and assistance, 
 and yet strangely enough he became in- 
 volved in several notable military con- 
 
12 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 troversies, which so enlisted his interest 
 and wounded his pride as to materially 
 change his career and cause him great 
 unhappiness, during the later years of 
 his life. 
 
 It may be truly said that he came to 
 know by experience the dangers of frank- 
 ness and friendly criticism, and that even 
 the most patriotic and unselfish men in 
 these modern times, like those of antiq- 
 uity "have their ambitions which neither 
 seas normountains nor unpeopled deserts 
 can limit ;" their egotism and personal 
 interests "which neither victory nor far- 
 reaching fame can suppress;" their secret 
 motives and purposes which "cause them 
 to injure one another when they touch 
 and are close together." After all, gen- 
 erals 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""' to current American his- 
 
 *From Chattanooga to Petersburg under Generals Grant and 
 Butler, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., N. Y. 1893. 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 1 3 
 
 tory, and has in addition left a manu- 
 script volume of personal memoirs upon 
 which I shall draw as occasion offers, 
 and which will doubtless be published 
 in due time. They were written during 
 the last two years of his life and throw 
 an interesting light, not only upon his 
 own deeds and character, but upon the 
 life and services of his friends and co- 
 temporaries. They are conceived in a 
 kindly and charitable vein which does 
 credit both to his heart and to his under- 
 standing. 
 
 William Farrar Smith was born at 
 St. Albans, in Northern Vermont, on 
 the 1 7th of February, 1 824. He came of 
 good New England stock, which emi- 
 grated from Massachusetts to the valley 
 of Lake Champlain before the beginning 
 of the last century. Both his paternal 
 and maternal ancestors and relations were 
 notable people, and took prominent parts 
 in the troubles of a thinly-settled fron- 
 tier, and especially in the French and 
 Indian war, and in the Committee of 
 Safety, as well as in the militia and vol- 
 unteers during the Revolutionary War. 
 They fought at the battle of Lake 
 
14 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 George, at the capture of Fort Ticon- 
 deroga, and at the affairs at Hubbardton 
 and Bennington. They were the com- 
 panions of Stark, Seth Warner and 
 Ethan Allen, and appear to have borne 
 themselves bravely and well upon all 
 occasions. They were by name Robin- 
 sons, Saffords, Fays, Butlers and Smiths. 
 There is a well-founded tradition that 
 his father's family, which came from the 
 old hill town of Barre, Massachusetts, 
 were known during the earlier colonial 
 days as Smithson, but before emigrating 
 to Vermont dropped the second syllable 
 for the sake of simplicity, and always 
 thereafter called themselves Smith. 
 
 William's father was a respectable 
 farmer at or near St. Albans. His uncle 
 John was a lawyer and a judge of dis- 
 tinction, and during the excitement 
 growing out of the Canadian rebellion of 
 1837, was elected to the next Congress. 
 He was a Democrat and the only one up 
 to that time ever elected from the State. 
 During his term of service he gave the 
 appointment of cadet at West Point to 
 his nephew William. His cousin John 
 Gregory Smith, also a lawyer of distinc- 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT I 5 
 
 tion, was afterwards Governor of Ver- 
 mont, and for many years president of 
 the Vermont Central and Northern Pa- 
 cific Railroads. His grandmother Smith 
 also from Barre, was the sister of a cer- 
 tain Captain Gregory of the Highland 
 regiment serving in Boston before the 
 Revolution. Through this connection 
 the General always believed he received 
 a strain of McGregor blood, for many 
 of that clan took the name of Gregory 
 after their immigration to the colonies. 
 
 His own mother was Sarah Butler, a 
 direct descendent of Isaac and Samuel 
 Robinson who were believed to have 
 come in the direct line from the cele- 
 brated puritan pastor, John Robinson, 
 of Leyden, who was long recognized by 
 even those who differed with him on 
 questions of doctrine as "the most learn- 
 ed, polished and modest spirit that ever 
 separated from the Church of England." 
 To the prepotency of this distinguished 
 divine, General Smith often, in a tone of 
 mingled banter and seriousness, attribu- 
 ted not only his habit of mature reflec- 
 tion and love of learning, but also his 
 "moderation combined with firmness" 
 
I 6 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 upon all questions which engaged his 
 attention. 
 
 Be all this as it may, it is certain that 
 his family were straight Anglo-Saxons, 
 who like the rest, came into New Eng- 
 land under the pressure of religious and 
 political disturbance at home, and 
 brought with them the sturdy virtues 
 and ineradicable prejudices of their race. 
 It is equally certain that this race, what- 
 ever 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 sold- 
 iers 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. 
 
 Like many another youth, his latent 
 love of arms and his determination to 
 go to West Point were aroused by see- 
 ing a company of regular soldiers, and 
 making the acquaintance of its officers, 
 at his native town. They were sent there 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT I J 
 
 to maintain order and prevent violations 
 of the neutrality laws during the Cana- 
 dian disturbances in 1 83 7 — 8- From the 
 day of his cadetship he received the 
 sobriquet and was always thereafter des- 
 ignated familiarly by his more intimate 
 friends as Baldy Smith in contradistinc- 
 tion from other officers of the same 
 patronymic. In the old days his name 
 would have been written Baldysmith. 
 
 He was a brilliant and faithful student 
 and became in turn a cadet-corporal, 
 color-sergeant and lieutenant. When it 
 is recalled that he received those honors 
 from that prince of soldiers Captain 
 (afterwards Major General) Charles F. 
 Smith, then commandant of cadets, and 
 in whose presence it is said no graduate 
 of his time could ever appear without 
 involuntarily assuming the position of a 
 soldier, it will be understood that young 
 Smith was brought up under proper in- 
 fluences and sent forth with the highest 
 ideals of his profession. He graduated 
 in the "fives" of his class. He was com- 
 missioned as a Brevet Second Lieutenant 
 in the corps of Topographical Engineers, 
 and served with it continuously till, for 
 
I 8 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 convenience and simplicity of adminis- 
 tration, it was merged with the Corps of 
 Engineers after the outbreak of the Re- 
 bellion. At the request of his chief, he 
 gave up two-thirds of the usual gradu- 
 ating leave of absence to lend a hand to 
 an under-manned surveying party on 
 Lake Erie. His services were from the 
 first of the scientific and useful rather 
 than the showy sort. They brought him 
 a wide range of valuable experience, ex- 
 tending from the surveys of the great 
 lakes to explorations of Texas and Ari- 
 zona, covering a period of seven years, 
 two of which were spent under Joseph E. 
 Johnston and William H. Emory, then 
 of the same corps,while engaged in estab- 
 lishing the new boundary line between 
 Mexico and the United States. During 
 his service in that region he located the 
 stage and wagon-route from San Antonio 
 to El Paso, surveyed a part of the Rio 
 Grande Valley, and familiarized himself 
 with the topography and resources of 
 Northwestern Texas and the state of Chi- 
 huahua in Mexico. Later he was trans- 
 ferred to Florida and made surveys for a 
 ship canal across the peninsula from the 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT I 9 
 
 Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico. Subse- 
 quently he had charge of the Eleventh 
 District in the light-house service with 
 his headquarters at Detroit. He then 
 became Assistant Secretary, and finally 
 on the retirement of his friend, Captain 
 Franklin, Engineer Secretary of the 
 Light-House Board. He had previously 
 asked for service with the army in Mex- 
 ico, but this had been denied. His serv- 
 ice in Texas and Florida had brought him 
 in contact with a number of officers who 
 afterwards became distinguished in the 
 Civil War. Among the most notable 
 of these were Buell, Joseph E. John- 
 ston, McClellan, Meade, Burnside and 
 Emory. His light-house service gave 
 him a friendly association with Commo- 
 dore Shubrick and Captain (afterwards 
 Admiral) Jenkins of the navy, General 
 Totten of the army, Professor Bache of 
 the Coast survey and Professor Henry of 
 the Smithsonian Institute, and opened to 
 him a wide acquaintance with the scien- 
 tific thought of the day. While con- 
 nected with the Light-House board he 
 planned and supervised the construc- 
 tion of four first-class light-houses, one 
 
20 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 for Montauk Point, two for Navesink 
 Highlands and Sandy Hook, and one 
 for Cape Canaveral. These were all 
 works of the highest class, fully abreast 
 of the world's best practice at the time. 
 His experience in connection with the 
 Light-House Board prepared the way for 
 a piece of specially useful service to the 
 country during the exciting period just 
 prior to the outbreak of actual hostilities 
 between the North and the South. His 
 position gave him access to the Secretary 
 of the Treasury, as the chief of the de- 
 partment to which the Light-House 
 Board belonged. The storm then brewing 
 showed itself in that board, made up, as 
 it was, of Northern and Southern men, 
 as well as elsewhere, and being intensely 
 loyal, Smith took measures to protect 
 and supply the principal light-houses on 
 the southern coast. It will be remem- 
 bered that Howell Cobb of Georgia was 
 succeeded by General John A. Dix of 
 New York as Secretary of the Treasury, 
 and that the latter aroused the drooping 
 hopes of the country by his celebrated 
 order : " If any man attempts to haul 
 down the American flag shoot him on 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 1 1 
 
 the spot." Smith was privy to and 
 encouraged the issuance of that order. 
 Immediately afterwards General Dix 
 gave him carte-blanche over the light- 
 house service, in pursuance of which he 
 visited all the important southern light 
 stations, winding up at Key West. He 
 found that place cut off from communi- 
 cation with Washington, and liable to 
 fall at once under the control of the Se- 
 cessionists. The Collector of Customs 
 was a southern man and disloyal. The 
 people of the town were in sympathy 
 with him, and were doing all they could 
 to overawe Captains Hunt and Bran- 
 nan, who were stationed there with a 
 small force of regular artillery. They 
 were loyal and able officers. Both rose 
 to distinction afterwards, but having 
 been left without instructions they were 
 at a loss as to their proper course till 
 Smith arrived with the latest news from 
 Washington. His clear and determined 
 counsel gave them heart and encourage- 
 ment, under which they made good their 
 hold upon the fort and the island. They 
 were reinforced in due time, which en- 
 abled the government to hold this im- 
 
22 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 portant strategic position at the entrance 
 to the Gulf of Mexico till the termina- 
 tion of the war put an end to all danger. 
 Before returning to the north, Smith 
 visited Havana, where he obtained valu- 
 able information for future use. 
 
 So far his work had been preparatory, 
 and one of the most useful features of 
 it was his tour of duty at West Point. 
 His services in the south, and especially 
 at Corpus Christi, had brought on a 
 severe attack of malarial poisoning, end- 
 ing in congestive chills and shattered 
 health, followed by sick-leave and a 
 return to the north. Before he had en- 
 tirely recovered he was ordered to West 
 Point, as principal Assistant Professor 
 of Mathematics. This was in 1855, 
 but his illness had so seriously affected 
 his head as to make it impossible for him 
 to discharge the duties of his position 
 in a manner satisfactory to himself. As 
 one of his pupils, I failed to discover 
 any lack of knowledge or prespicacity on 
 his part. To the contrary, he impressed 
 the sections of which he had charge as a 
 very clear-headed man with remark- 
 able powers of mind and great aptitude 
 
 1 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 1$ 
 
 as a disciplinarian and teacher. It is 
 now known, however, that the close 
 attention and mental exertion which his 
 duties required of him gave him such 
 pain as to make it imperative that he 
 should be relieved, and this was done at 
 his own request after a year's hard work 
 and suffering. The injury he had re- 
 ceived was unfortunately never entirely 
 overcome. Throughout the whole of 
 his subsequent life he was subject to re- 
 current attacks of malaria, accompanied 
 by pain in the head with a tendency to 
 mental depression, which disabled him 
 entirely at times, and upon one most 
 important occasion compelled him to 
 leave the field, when his interests and his 
 inclinations demanded that he should 
 remain. I refer now especially to the 
 time when he was assigned by General 
 Grant to the command of the Army of 
 the James, to succeed Major General But- 
 ler, who was at the same time ordered to 
 return to Fortress Monroe. It will be 
 remembered that this order was never 
 carried into effect, but that General 
 Smith, who was suffering from one of his 
 attacks, took leave of absence, much to 
 
24 GENERALWILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 the concern of his friends, and went by 
 the way of Fortress Monroe to New 
 York. There was no great movement 
 under way at the time, but before his 
 leave of absence had expired he was no- 
 tified that the order in question had been 
 countermanded. Various explanations 
 were given for this action, and I shall 
 recur to it again. But it is believed by 
 those who were interested in General 
 Smith, and had confidence in his unu- 
 sual capacity for high command, that his 
 relief was largely, if not altogether, due to 
 intrigue, on the part of General Butler, 
 aided perhaps by an exaggerated esti- 
 mate on the part of General Grant of 
 that officer's political importance, which 
 General Smith could easily have defeated 
 had he been on the ground in actual 
 command of the army to which he had 
 been assigned. 
 
 But to return to his services at West 
 Point. It was during this year that he 
 greatly widened his knowledged of mili- 
 tary history and the art of war. Although 
 far from well, he led the studious life of 
 a scientist, and in the daily companion- 
 ship of the professors and of Lieutenants 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 1$ 
 
 Silvey and Holabird, two officers of dis- 
 tinguished talent and learning, he obtain- 
 ed new and broader views of professional 
 subjects. He had early become noted as 
 having an investigating mind which could 
 not be satisfied with superficial know- 
 ledge, and for a sound and conservative 
 judgment which gave great weight to his 
 conclusions. He was most deliberate and 
 methodical in his habits of thought, and 
 had an unusually tenacious grip upon the 
 thread of his argument. His manners 
 and movements, while free from every 
 appearance of hurry and excitement, 
 were habitually so well ordered that he 
 was enabled to cover a great deal of 
 ground in a small space of time. Always 
 a close student of the higher branches 
 of his profession, and belonging to an 
 elite corps which at that time had no 
 part in the command of troops, he be- 
 came a proficient in military organization, 
 administration and logistics, and also in 
 strategy and grand-tactics, as taught in 
 the text books, long before the outbreak 
 of the war for the Union, but it is to be 
 observed that he never claimed to have 
 become specially skilled in minor tactics, 
 
26 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 or in the daily routine of company or 
 regimental service. He was, however, 
 so profoundly devoted to the military 
 profession in a larger way, that at times 
 he gave to those less learned than him- 
 self the idea that he was a pedant in 
 knowledge and a martinet on duty. With 
 imperturbable self-possession, great lu- 
 cidity of statement and a decidedly delib- 
 erate and austere manner, he was widely 
 recognized as a masterful man, who won 
 easily and without effort the respect 
 and admiration, not only of the cadets 
 who fell under his charge at West Point, 
 but afterwards of the men and officers 
 who came under his command from the 
 volunteers. To such as are acquainted 
 with West Point life, or with the rela- 
 tions existing between officers and men 
 in the army, no higher evidence can 
 be given of Smith's real abilities and 
 strength of character. It is a creditable 
 fact that no cadet, however adroit or 
 skilful can cheat his way through the 
 Military Academy, and that no officer, 
 however plausible, can for any consider- 
 able time deceive or impose upon the 
 cadets with a pretense of knowledge or 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 27 
 
 a show of character which he does not 
 possess. The same is true perhaps in a 
 less degree ef the volunteers and their 
 officers. Occasionally a cadet or an offi- 
 cer may be so modest or unobtrusive or 
 sd slow of development as to escape the 
 critical observation of his associates, but 
 in most cases he becomes sufficiently 
 known to justify a correct estimate of 
 his character and a fair prediction, under 
 favorable opportunities, as to his prob- 
 able course and success in life. Of 
 William F. Smith it may be truthfully 
 said that he made his best friends among 
 the cadets he taught and the subordi- 
 nates he commanded, not one of whom 
 ever deserted him in trouble or adver- 
 sity, denied the greatness of his talents 
 or questioned the elevation of his char- 
 acter. His troubles and differences were 
 always with those above him, never with 
 those under his command. 
 
 As is frequently the fate of the strong 
 man gifted with an analytical mind, and 
 an outspoken contempt of pretense and 
 sham, it was Smith's misfortune upon 
 more than one occasion to arouse the 
 animosity and opposition of those hav- 
 
28 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 ing higher rank than himself. Direct 
 and vigorous in his methods, and con- 
 fident of the rectitude of his purposes, 
 he never hesitated to give his views to 
 such as he believed to be entitled to 
 them, without reference to whether they 
 would be well received or not. Loyal 
 and truthful by nature, he always held 
 others to the high standard which he set 
 up for himself. Brought up to a rigid 
 observance of military discipline, it is 
 not to be denied that he was exacting in 
 a high degree, with those over whom he 
 found himself in command. While he 
 never permitted those below him to vary 
 from or to disregard his instructions, it 
 is perhaps true that like most men of 
 talent, he was somewhat impatient of re- 
 straint, especially in cases where he felt 
 himself to be abler than his commanding 
 officer, or better informed as to the actual 
 conditions of his work, and yet no man 
 knew better than he when the time for 
 discussion and the exercise of discretion 
 ended and that for obedience and vigor- 
 ous action began. If at any time later 
 in life he seemed to forget the true rule 
 for his own guidance, it must be inferred 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 29 
 
 that he was sorely tried by the ignorance 
 or incompetency of those above him, 
 or had overestimated their forebearance 
 or friendship for him, or their zeal for 
 the public service. Always highly con- 
 scientious in his purposes and independ- 
 ent in his thoughts it was but natural 
 that he should scorn "to crook the preg- 
 nant hinges of the knee where thrift 
 may follow fawning." Not always as 
 patient and conciliatory with his equals 
 as a less virile or rugged nature would 
 have made him, he occasionally aroused 
 antagonisms and made enemies, as such 
 characters always do, and those enemies 
 were not slow to impugn his motives, 
 nor to do what they could to mar his 
 career. Withal, it will appear from a 
 careful study of his life and services as 
 set forth in the records, and as explained 
 by his own writings, that his critics have 
 signally failed to mar the foundation of 
 his reputation or to deprive him of the 
 fame to which his brilliant achievements 
 so justly entitle him. 
 
 The culmination of the political agi- 
 tation for the dissolution of the Federal 
 Union, and the commencement of actual 
 
3<D GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 hostilities between the government and 
 the seceding states, found William F. 
 Smith, only a captain by law, after four- 
 teen years of continuous service, a few 
 months over thirty-seven years of age, 
 and in the full maturity of his faculties. 
 As before stated, his health was never 
 afterwards altogether stable, but it was 
 sufficiently re-established to enable him 
 to throw himself heartily into the strug- 
 gle and to perform such duties as fell to 
 his lot with a fair degree of endurance. 
 Although a Democrat, as far as he had 
 any party connection, his sympathies 
 were all with the Union and National 
 Government, and impelled him to lose 
 no time, but make haste, on his return 
 from Key West and Havana, to obtain 
 such employment as might be open to 
 him. The first duty that was offered 
 him was in New York, where he was en- 
 gaged for several weeks in mustering the 
 volunteers into the United States service. 
 During this period, on the 24th of 
 April, 1 861, he was married to Miss 
 Sarah Lyon, a young lady of New York, 
 who was famous for the lovliness of her 
 person and character, whom he had first 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 3 I 
 
 met two years before. It was on a short 
 wedding trip to his native state that he 
 offered his services to the Governor. 
 The latter had already raised and organ- 
 ized two regiments of infantry but with- 
 out hesitation he promised Captain 
 Smith the next, as soon as it should be 
 called for. 
 
 Meanwhile he was still subject to 
 duty as an engineer officer, and as such, 
 strangely enough was ordered to report 
 to Major General Benjamin F. Butler, 
 fresh from the life of a successful lawyer, 
 then in command at Fortress Monroe, 
 where he arrived on the ist of June,i86i. 
 While there he conducted several im- 
 portant reconnoissances in the direction 
 of Yorktown and Big Bethel, and thus 
 became acquainted with a region in 
 which he was afterwards to play a most 
 important part. His services lasted 
 something less than two months, and 
 became still more notable from the fact 
 that they made him thoroughly ac- 
 quainted with General Butler. They 
 were brought suddenly to an end by the 
 reappearance of his old trouble, which 
 in time made it necessary for him to 
 
32 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 take a sick-leave. The surgeon who 
 had him in charge directed him to again 
 seek the tonic climate of Brattleborough 
 in his native State. According to pro- 
 mise, his good friend, the Governor, 
 took the earliest opportunity to send him 
 his commission as Colonel of the Third 
 Regiment of Vermont Volunteer In- 
 fantry, to date from July 16th. But 
 owing to the scarcity of regular officers, 
 he had previously been ordered to duty 
 on the staff of General McDowell, then 
 commanding the army in front of Wash- 
 ington, though, his health did not per- 
 mit him to join in time to take part in 
 the forward movement which ended in 
 the disastrous battle of Bull Run. 
 
 As soon however as his strength was 
 sufficiently re-established Colonel Smith 
 repaired to Washington, and in the rush 
 and excitement which prevailed after the 
 return of the defeated army to that 
 neighborhood, he was engaged in help- 
 ing to fortify and defend that city till the 
 danger was past and the requirements 
 of his regiment made it necessary for 
 him to take command and begin its pre- 
 paration for active service. It is to be 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 33 
 
 noted that there was an unaccountable 
 reluctance on the part of the War De- 
 partment at the time, to permit the de- 
 tachment of officers belonging to the 
 various staff corps, for the purpose of 
 commanding volunteers, but this was 
 overcome without much difficulty in 
 his case, and he began his career as an 
 infantry colonel opportunely at the very 
 time that McClellan was re-organizing 
 the defeated army and badly needed the 
 assistance of educated officers. Deeply 
 impressed with the importance of stim- 
 ulating the pride of the volunteers, and 
 of keeping alive the heroic traditions of 
 their state by all proper means, Colonel 
 Smith recommended that the Vermont 
 regiments should be brigaded and trained 
 together, and fortunately this was ap- 
 proved by General McClellan. The 
 Green Mountain men had won great 
 renown in the Colonial and Revolu- 
 tionary Wars by virtue of their state 
 organization and services and the marked 
 individuality which characterized them. 
 It was a happy thought to keep them 
 together during the Civil War. The 
 sequel showed that it was not only highly 
 
34 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 beneficial to the national cause, but that 
 it added greatly to the fame of the Ver- 
 mont men. 
 
 As the war was a sectional one in its 
 origin, many of our best officers believed 
 that the volunteer regiments should be 
 formed into brigades and divisions, with- 
 out reference to the States from which 
 they came. They held that an army or- 
 ganized in this way would more rapidly 
 develop the national spirit and become 
 a more efficient military machine than 
 one formed on state or sectional lines, 
 and the general practice to the end of 
 the war, in the Union army, was in ac- 
 cordance with this idea. 
 
 The Vermont brigade, composed of 
 the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and 
 Sixth Vermont Regiments, was the one 
 notable exception to this practice and the 
 result was in every way satisfactory. It 
 preserved its identity till the end of the 
 war and became famous as one of the 
 best and most distinctive organizations 
 that ever upheld the Union cause. It 
 was composed almost entirely of native 
 Vermont men, racy of the soil, hardy, 
 self-reliant and courageous, and always 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 3 5 
 
 ready for the serious business of warfare. 
 It owned its early and enduring discipline 
 to Smith, who was appointed Brigadier 
 General on the 13 th of August, and from 
 that time forth it never ceased to have a 
 place in his affections. From the first 
 he took a special pride in his regiment, 
 and devoted himself earnestly to its in- 
 struction and discipline, for the perfec- 
 tion of which it soon became noted, but 
 in those days of rapid changes, when the 
 loyal states were sending forth their vol- 
 unteers by the hundred thousand, bri- 
 gades soon grew into divisions, and di- 
 visions into army-corps and armies. 
 
 General Smith was then at exactly the 
 right age, and had already achieved such 
 a high reputation as a scientific and com- 
 petent soldier, that he was called upon 
 after only a few weeks' service as a 
 brigade commander to take charge of 
 a division of three brigades. Looking 
 about him with anxious care for a suit- 
 able successor, he assigned the Vermont 
 Brigade to the command of Brigadier 
 General William T. H. Brooks, a grad- 
 uate of West Point from Ohio, but a 
 grandson of Vermont. He was a vet- 
 
^6 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 eran of the Mexican and Indian Wars, 
 in which he had gained great experience, 
 and from which he became justly famous 
 as one of the finest soldiers of his time. 
 A man of striking countenance, great 
 physical vigor and dauntless courage, he 
 was an ideal leader of the Vermont men 
 and at once won their confidence and re- 
 spect. It is one of the traditions of the 
 times that under him "The Iron Bri- 
 gade," as it soon came to be known 
 throughout the army, was never repulsed 
 and never failed to accomplish the task 
 before it. Its "skirmish line" was be- 
 lieved to be "stronger than an old- 
 fashioned line of battle," and when it 
 covered the advance, the column behind 
 it had to put forth its best efforts to keep 
 up. From the brigadier general to the 
 lowest private, they not only knew their 
 business, but just when they should be 
 called upon to take the lead. It was 
 one of the grizzled privates during the 
 pursuit of Lee from the field of Gettys- 
 burg, who perceiving that the cavalry 
 was making but poor progress, said from 
 the ranks as General Sedgwick was 
 passing: " I 'low you want to get to 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 37 
 
 Williamsport tonight, don't you, Uncle 
 John ?" " Yes, my man," said the Gen- 
 eral. "Well, in that case you had better 
 put the Vermont brigade to the front!" 
 The suggestion was at once adopted, 
 and under the sturdy advance which fol- 
 lowed the desired camp was reached that 
 night without a check or a halt by the 
 way. 
 
 The other two brigades of Smith's 
 division were commanded, respectively, 
 by Windfield Scott Hancock and Isaac 
 I. Stevens, two soldiers of the highest 
 quality, and both destined to achieve 
 undying fame. When their subsequent 
 career is considered it may well be 
 doubted if there was ever a division in 
 the Union army commanded by abler 
 men than Hancock, Stevens, Brooks 
 and Baldy Smith. During the forma- 
 tive period of the Army of the Poto- 
 mac, when all were drilling, all studying 
 tactics, all teaching guard duty and all 
 striving hard to establish a satisfactory 
 state of military dicipline, Smith varied 
 this irksome work by an occasional re- 
 view, or by the still more exciting exer- 
 cise of a reconnoissance in force, thus 
 
38 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 adding practice to precept, and bringing 
 regiments and brigades to act coherently 
 together. In all this he handled his di- 
 vision skillfully and well, and conse- 
 quently soon had the satisfaction of 
 showing those in authority over him 
 that it was in admirable spirits and con- 
 dition. 
 
 How far he favored the policy of 
 delay for the purpose of increasing the 
 army's strength and perfecting its organi- 
 zation is not certainly known, but it must 
 be admitted on his own testimony that 
 he belonged to the coterie of officers who 
 fully trusted and supported McClellan 
 in the determination to make complete 
 preparation before moving against the 
 enemy. Nor is it known what part he 
 took in the selection of the line of ope- 
 rations ultimately adopted by McClellan 
 for the capture of Richmond. Perhaps 
 this is not important, for neither the 
 duty nor the responsibility of the choice 
 was his. It is not likely, however, that 
 he was consulted for his acquaintance 
 with McClellan was not at first close or 
 intimate. At a later period he joined 
 his friend General Franklin, then gener- 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 39 
 
 ally acknowledged as one of the leading 
 military men of the day, in a letter to 
 the President recommending the trans- 
 fer of the Army of the Potomac from 
 the vicinity of Fredericksburg to the 
 James River, as near to Richmond as 
 practicable, and urging its re-inforcement 
 by all the troops that could be gathered 
 from the departments of the Atlantic 
 seaboard. Without discussing here the 
 origin or the wisdom of this contro- 
 verted proposition, it may be remarked 
 that it was supported by such an array 
 of arguments and influence as would 
 doubtless have secured another trial for 
 it, even in the face of its failure under 
 McClellan, had the condition and 
 strength of the army, and the resources 
 of the country been considered by the 
 administration sufficient to meet all the 
 requirements of the civil and military 
 situation. 
 
 At a still later period after General 
 Grant had come to the head of military 
 affairs, had decided to take personal 
 charge of operations in Virginia, and 
 was seriously considering the appoint- 
 ment of General Smith to the immedi- 
 
40 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 ate command of the Army of the Poto- 
 mac, it became known to me, through 
 a letter from the latter, that he strongly 
 favored a "powerful movement from the 
 lower James River, or even from the 
 sounds of North Carolina" against the 
 interior of the Confederacy. I was at 
 that time serving in Washington, as the 
 Chief of the Cavalry Bureau, and upon 
 receipt of the letter laid it before General 
 Rawlins, Grant's able Chief of Staff, but 
 without giving it my concurrence or ap- 
 proval, for such consideration as he might 
 think best to give it. It was received at 
 a juncture when the selection of a proper 
 plan of operations was conceded to be 
 a matter of the gravest importance. It 
 is an interesting fact that the plan in 
 question did not receive the support of 
 Rawlins, although both he and Grant, 
 fresh from the victory of Chattanooga, 
 were warm friends and admirers of Gen- 
 eral Smith as a strategist. Rawlins, with 
 unerring instinct, took strong grounds 
 against it, for the reason, as he vigorously 
 expressed it, that he could not see the 
 sense of going so far, and taking so much 
 time to find Lee with a divided army, 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 4I 
 
 when he could be reached within a half 
 day's march directly to the front, with 
 the entire army united and reinforced by 
 all the men the goverment had at its dis- 
 posal. Knowing that this was Grant's 
 argument as well, I have always supposed 
 that his final decision to advance directly 
 from Culpepper Court House against 
 Lee's army, and to retain Meade in im- 
 mediate command of the Army of the 
 Potomac, while the entire available force 
 of Butler's Deparment should advance 
 directly from Fort Monroe under the 
 immediate command of General Smith, 
 was due partly to Smith's decided op- 
 position to the overland line of opera- 
 tions, and to his tenacious adherence to 
 the principal features of the plan which 
 he and Franklin had recommended to 
 Lincoln. Meade's approval of the direct 
 line of advance, and his cheerful support 
 of Grant's plans as explained in detail, 
 aided by Butler's assurances of hearty 
 co-operation, doubtless had much to do 
 with the retention of those officers in 
 their respective places, and in the assign- 
 ment of Smith, much to his disappoint- 
 ment, to a relatively subordinate posi- 
 
42 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 tion on the line he had so openly pre- 
 ferred. It may also account in some de- 
 gree for the failure of those distinguished 
 generals to work as harmoniously with 
 each other to the common end, as was 
 necessary to ensure success. 
 
 Before following this interesting sub- 
 ject to its conclusion, the part actually 
 played by General Smith in McClellan's 
 Peninsular Campaign should be briefly 
 recounted. After the Army of the Po- 
 tomac had been transferred to the lower 
 Chesapeake, by water, instead of landing 
 at Urbana or on the estuary of the Rap- 
 pahannock, as was at first intended, out 
 of fear of the Merrimac, which had 
 played such havoc with the wooden fri- 
 gates of Goldborough's fleet, in Hamp- 
 ton Roads, it was disembarked at Fort- 
 ress Monroe. It necessarily lost some 
 time here before it could be reunited 
 and begin its march up the Peninsula. 
 It had hardly got well under way, when 
 much to the disappointment of the 
 country it found itself stopped for thirty 
 days, by an insignificant stream and a 
 weak line of entrenchments held by a 
 few guns and a single division of Con- 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 43 
 
 federate Infantry, under the command 
 of General Magruder. 
 
 The so-called " Siege of Yorktown" 
 followed, and General Smith, chafing at 
 the delay which he conceived to be 
 unnecessary set about studying the sit- 
 uation in his own front, with the keen 
 eye of an experienced engineer. Hav- 
 ing the year before familiarized himself 
 with the lay of the land near Fort 
 Monroe, he was quick to grasp every 
 condition which favored an advance. A 
 careful reconnoissance of his immediate 
 front enabled him to surprise a crossing 
 of Warwick River and to carry a section 
 of the fortified line beyond. This as 
 might have been expected was done by 
 a detachment of the Vermont Brigade, 
 which made a gallant effort to maintain 
 the lodgement it had gained, but as it 
 was not supported by McClellan, it was 
 withdrawn after suffering a loss of 165 
 men killed, wounded and missing. This 
 was the first engagement in a campaign 
 destined to cost the lives of many brave 
 men and to end in a terrible disaster to 
 the national arms. 
 
 After making a heroic stand and hold- 
 
44 GENERAL WILLIAM PARRAR SMITH 
 
 ing McClellan and his overwhelming 
 force at bay for nearly a month, Magru- 
 der abandoned his lines and fell back to 
 Williamsburgh on the road up the Pen- 
 insula to Richmond. He was slowly 
 followed by McClellan's army. Smith's 
 divison having crossed the Warwick at 
 Lee's mill, led in the pursuit, coming 
 up with the enemy strongly posted in a 
 new line of fortifications covering the 
 town of Williamsburg. Smith's engi- 
 neering skill and his quick intelligence 
 served him again most fortunately, and 
 with the aid of Captain West of the 
 Coast Survey then serving on his staff, 
 soon enabled him to find the weak spot 
 in the enemy's position. This time it 
 turned out to be on the extreme left, 
 where he had failed, probably through 
 lack of troops, to occupy the extensive 
 works which had been previously con- 
 structed. Realizing intuitively the fu- 
 tility of a front attack against such 
 entrenchments, Smith threw Hancock's 
 brigade promptly to the right and under 
 cover of the woods, succeeded without 
 serious loss or delay in occupying one 
 of the works from which, with his divi- 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 45 
 
 sion he could easily have swept the whole 
 line had he not been restrained by the 
 presence of his seniors. 
 
 Unfortunately McClellan was in the 
 rear, but Sumner and Heintzelman, 
 corps commanders, were soon upon the 
 ground, and with prudent but ill-timed 
 conservatism declined to sanction the 
 proper movement to reinforce Hancock, 
 for fear that it would bring on a general 
 engagement before the army could be 
 properly closed up and placed in posi- 
 tion to participate. Smith recognizing, 
 the great advantage certain to arise from 
 pushing promptly through the opening 
 he had already found, besought Sumner 
 for permission to go with the rest of his 
 division to Hancock's assistance, but 
 this was also denied. As other troops 
 arrived on the field, Smith moved to the 
 right to make place for them, with the 
 hope that he might be permitted to con- 
 tinue his march unobserved till he had 
 come up with his advanced brigade, but 
 orders were sent which arrested him be- 
 fore he had accomplished the object he 
 had in view. All day long he was held 
 in the leash with certain victory in sight. 
 
46 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 McClellan arrived on the field late in 
 the afternoon, but before he could get a 
 satisfactory understanding of the condi- 
 tion of affairs, night came on. Conse- 
 quently nothing decisive was done that 
 day and a great opportunity was lost. 
 The wily Magruder, seeing that his left 
 had been turned, and that his position 
 was untenable, abandoned his works 
 under cover of darkness and fell back 
 towards Richmond. Obviously this re- 
 sult was due, first, to the fortunate dis- 
 covery made by General Smith and his 
 engineer, and to the successful turning 
 movement of Hancock, based thereon; 
 and, second, to the certainty that if pro- 
 perly reinforced by the rest of Smith's 
 division, and by other divisions, if nec- 
 essary, as it surely would be as soon as 
 the national commander had come to 
 comprehend the real condition of affairs, 
 the Confederate forces would be taken 
 in flank and rear and overwhelmed. 
 
 This was Smith's last chance at any- 
 thing like independent action. During 
 the remainder of this ill-starred cam- 
 paign he played the part of a subordin- 
 ate division commander, in a large army 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 47 
 
 engaged in a complicated series of move- 
 ments and battles, and of course had no 
 control over the general plans or oper- 
 ations. There is no evidence that he 
 was ever consulted by anyone except his 
 corps commander Franklin who was 
 himself also a subordinate. The army 
 lacking field experience, did not work 
 well together as a whole. The corps 
 commanders had been selected and ap- 
 pointed by the Secretary of War, with- 
 out reference to McClellan's wishes or 
 recommendations. Several of them 
 were veterans, who received their assign- 
 ments because of seniority rather than 
 for special aptitudes, and this naturally 
 begot a disposition on the part of the 
 division commanders,who were generally 
 younger and perhaps more ambitious 
 men, to look carefully after their own 
 troops and leave larger affairs to their 
 seniors. At all events, Smith's principal 
 care henceforth was to handle his own 
 division and look out exclusively for its 
 requirements, and this he did prudently 
 and well, especially during the Seven 
 days' battle, and during the change of 
 base from the York to the James River. 
 
48 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 His brigades, led as I have pointed out, 
 by very able men, were more or less 
 constantly and successfully engaged. 
 They took a most creditable part in the 
 battles of Golding's Farm, Savage Sta- 
 tion and White Oak Swamp. 
 
 Throughout the whole of this trying 
 time of incessant marching and fighting 
 Smith remained w T atchful and wary, di- 
 recting his division through every peril, 
 and finally conducting it, without mate- 
 rial loss, but with increased confidence 
 in itself and in its leader, to the new 
 base which had been selected for the 
 army. His cool and confident bearing, 
 and his skillful conduct throughout this 
 campaign, won for him the brevet of 
 Lieutenant Colonel in the regular army 
 and the rank of Major General of Vol- 
 unteers. 
 
 It was during the night march from 
 Malvern Hill that General Smith en- 
 countered General Fitz-John Porter, his 
 class-mate whom he always regarded as 
 a first-class soldier, and with whom upon 
 this occasion he had a conversation, the 
 facts of which go far to justify this high 
 estimate. Noting that Porter seemed 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 49 
 
 greatly depressed he asked what was the 
 matter. In reply, Porter told him that 
 as soon as he had become certain the 
 evening before that the enemy had been 
 broken and beaten back from his reck- 
 less attack on the Union lines at Mal- 
 vern Hill, and had withdrawn in dis- 
 order from the field, he had gone to 
 McClellan on board the boat which he 
 had occupied with his headquarters, and 
 had begged him with all the arguments 
 he could bring to bear, and all the force 
 he could command, to assume the offen- 
 sive at dawn. He said he had spent 
 half the night in advocacy of this policy, 
 expressing the confident belief that if 
 adopted it would result, not only in the 
 destruction of Lee's army, but in the 
 capture of Richmond. He had no 
 doubt that our own army, encouraged 
 by the sanguinary repulse it had finally 
 inflicted upon the enemy, would respond 
 to every demand which could be made 
 upon it, and would thus turn a series 
 of indecisive combats, which the country 
 would surely regard as defeats, into a 
 magnificent victory. Smith's testimony 
 shows this splendid conception to have 
 
$0 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 been no afterthought with Porter, as it 
 was with many who subsequently came 
 to understand the facts of the case, but 
 coming as it did hot from a desperate 
 battle field, must be regarded as the in- 
 spiration of true military genius, while 
 the fact that McClellan rejected it must 
 always be considered as the best possi- 
 ble evidence of his unreadiness to meet 
 great emergencies. * Smith does not say 
 specifically that he approved it, but 
 the context of his narrative leaves but 
 little doubt that he thought favorably 
 of it and would have given it hearty 
 support. 
 
 In the withdrawal of the Army of the 
 Potomac from the Peninsula, and its 
 transfer to Washington, as ordered by 
 Halleck and the Secretary of War, 
 Smith and his division necessarily played 
 a subordinate part. With the rest of the 
 army they formed a tardy junction with 
 Pope in front of Washington, and did 
 theirshare towards making the capital safe 
 and unassailable, but they were not again 
 engaged till they met the enemy in the 
 bloody and successful action at Cramp- 
 ton's Gap, in the South Mountain. The 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 5 I 
 
 division also took part three days later 
 in the battle of Antietam, but notwith- 
 standing McClellan's claim that the bat- 
 tle was a " master piece of art," neither 
 Smith's troops, nor the corps to which 
 they belonged, were seriously engaged. 
 This was not the fault of either Franklin 
 or Smith, both of whom were greatly 
 displeased with the disjointed and irres- 
 olute manner in which the Union forces 
 were handled and the battle was fought. 
 The most that can be said is that both 
 General Smith and his division did all 
 that was asked of them, not only in the 
 battle of Antietam, but in following Lee's 
 army back to Virginia. These opera- 
 tions are now justly regarded as reflect- 
 ing but little credit on the generalship 
 by which the national army was con- 
 trolled during that period of its history. 
 While they ended McClellan's military 
 career, they afforded but little chance 
 for any of his subordinates to gain dis- 
 tinction, and those who escaped respon- 
 sibility for supporting his policy of 
 delay had good reasons to regard them- 
 selves as fortunate. 
 
 The withdrawal of McClellan and the 
 
$2 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 accession of the weak and vacillating 
 Burnside to command was followed by 
 a re-arrangement of the Army of the 
 Potomac into three grand divisions, 
 and a re-assignment of leading generals. 
 Franklin was placed in command of the 
 Third Grand Division, consisting of the 
 First Corps under General Reynolds, 
 and the Sixth Corps under General 
 Smith. In the abortive Fredericksburg 
 campaign which followed, these corps 
 had the extreme left of the Union line, 
 but it should have been evident from 
 the start that with the opposing armies 
 separated by a broad river occupying a 
 deep valley, from three-quarters of a mile 
 to a mile and a half between the opposite 
 crests, the movement which was to bring 
 on the battle must necessarily be fought 
 under extraordinary disadvantages to the 
 attacking army. In the mind of those 
 who were to carry out the details of the 
 movements, success must have seemed 
 hopeless from the first. Burnside was 
 from the beginning of the campaign 
 overcome by the weight of his respon- 
 sibilities, and between tears at one time 
 and lack of sleep at another, his fatuous 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT $% 
 
 mind failed to evolve for itself, or to ac- 
 cept from others a definite and compre- 
 hensive plan of operations. He seemed 
 at successive times to have had hopes of 
 surprising Lee, of breaking his center 
 and overwhelming his left, of seizing 
 two important points in his main line 
 of defence and completely turning his 
 left, but withal it is certain that he gave 
 to none of these operations sufficient 
 attention to justify the slightest hope 
 that it could be successfully carried into 
 effect. 
 
 On the other hand, Lee was on the 
 alert with his army of 78,000 men, well 
 and compactly posted in a commanding 
 and almost impregnable position along 
 the wooded heights which overlooked 
 Fredericksburg and the valley of the 
 Rappahannock from the south. Burn- 
 side had 113,000 men of all arms, well 
 supplied and thoroughly organized, com- 
 manded by the ablest generals in the 
 service. His preponderance of force 
 was therefore close to fifty per cent., but 
 unfortunately that was not enough to 
 outweigh the natural and artificial obsta- 
 cles, the heights, stone walls, entrench- 
 
54 
 
 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 ments, open fields and river to be over- 
 come by the advancing army. The task 
 was a hopeless one from the start, and 
 to make matters worse, Burnside, who at 
 best had but a vague and uncertain com- 
 prehension of the work before him, seems 
 to have lost what little head he was en- 
 dowed with before his operations were 
 fully under way. 
 
 The result was unfortunate in the 
 extreme. Two Grand Divisions suc- 
 ceeded in crossing the river without 
 material opposition, but at once found 
 themselves confronted by difficulties and 
 forces they could not overcome. Frank- 
 lin, in compliance with his instructions, 
 took two days to get into position, but 
 when his two corps had reached the 
 place assigned them on the old Rich- 
 mond Road, with the aid of Smith and 
 Reynolds, he looked over the ground 
 and made up his mind that the only 
 chance of victory was offered by an 
 assault upon the enemy's right center, 
 with the full force of his two corps, 
 amounting to 40,000 men. Burnside, 
 at his invitation, came to that part of the 
 field, and after listening to the views 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 55 
 
 of the three generals, either of whom 
 was vastly his superior as a soldier, ap- 
 proved the plan and promised to give a 
 written order for its execution. Franklin 
 waited all night for the order, telegraphed 
 twice, and finally sent a staff officer for 
 it, but it never came. Indeed it was 
 never issued but a different order di- 
 recting him to seize the heights at 
 Hamilton's House, nearly three miles 
 from his right division, and to keep the 
 whole of his command in readiness to 
 move at once, was sent instead. Sumner 
 received an order equally inane, in refer- 
 ence to Marye's Heights. The result- 
 ing operations which should have been 
 carefully co-ordinated and vigorously 
 supported, were weak and indecisive. 
 As the day wore away Lee took advan- 
 tage of the delays and the opportunities 
 which they offered him, and assumed 
 the offensive. There was much severe 
 but desultory and disconnected fighting. 
 The Union generals with their officers 
 and men did their best, but Burnside 
 was on the opposite side of the river and 
 could neither give intelligent orders nor 
 act promptly upon the suggestions which 
 
56 GENERAL WTLLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 were sent to him from the field. There 
 was no chance for maneuvering. It was 
 from the first head-on, face-to-face fight- 
 ing with no hope of victory for the as- 
 sailants. The Union losses were over 
 12,500 men killed, wounded and miss- 
 ing, of which 4,962 belonged to Frank- 
 lin's Grand Division, while Jackson's 
 corps which confronted him lost 5,364. 
 
 A full description of this mid-winter 
 campaign would be out of place in this 
 sketch, and the same may be said of the 
 abortive Mud Campaign six weeks later, 
 which had for its object the passage of the 
 Rappahannock by a movement above 
 Fredericksburg. Both Franklin and 
 Smith took part in this ill planned and 
 poorly executed undertaking. The 
 weather and the roads were against it, 
 and it soon came to an end quite as pit- 
 iful, though not so costly, as its prede- 
 cessor. 
 
 Following these failures, Burnside, in 
 futile desperation, prepared an order 
 relieving Franklin, Smith and several 
 other officers of inferior rank from duty, 
 and dismissing Hooker, Brooks, New- 
 ton and Cochrane from the service. He 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 57 
 
 made no further charge against these 
 officers than that they had no confidence 
 in himself, and this much was probably 
 true, but it would have been equally as 
 true of any other generals serving at that 
 time in the Army of the Potomac. The 
 President, instead of approving the or- 
 der, it should be noted, at once relieved 
 Burnside and assigned Hooker to the 
 command. Sumner and Franklin both 
 of whom outranked Hooker were re- 
 lieved from further service with that 
 army, while Smith was transferred to the 
 command of the Ninth Corps, which 
 he held but a short time, owing to the 
 failure of the Senate to confirm him as 
 a major general. This was doubtless 
 brought about by misrepresentation, 
 made to the Senate committee on the 
 Conduct of the War, but as the action 
 of the Senate and its committees in ref- 
 erence to confirmations were secret, no 
 correct explanation can now be given of 
 the allegations against Smith, though 
 they were generally attributed at the 
 time to Burnside and his friends, and 
 while they were neither properly inves- 
 tigated nor supported, they resulted in 
 
58 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 reducing Smith to the rank of brigadier 
 general and depriving him of the high 
 command which he would have other- 
 wise continued to hold. 
 
 It is worthy of note that before these 
 changes were made, and while the Army 
 of the Potomac was still floundering in 
 the mud under the inefficient command 
 of Burnside, Franklin and Smith joined 
 in the letter previously referred to, 
 advising the President to abandon the 
 line on which the Army was then ope- 
 rating, with such ill success, and after 
 reinforcing it to the fullest extent, to 
 send it back again to the line of the 
 James River. This letter was doubtless 
 written in entire good faith, but at a time 
 when it seemed to be impossible for the 
 government, even if it had so desired, 
 to carry out its recommendations. Its 
 only immediate effect was to arouse the 
 antagonism of Mr. Stanton against these 
 two able officers, and to deprive the 
 country for a while of their services. A 
 wiser and more temperate Secretary of 
 War would have filed and ignored it, or 
 sent for the officers and explained why 
 he deemed their advice to be impracti- 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 59 
 
 cable at that time. That, however, was 
 not Mr. Stanton's way. Although in- 
 tensely patriotic and in earnest, he was 
 imperious and overbearing both to high 
 and low alike, and preferred to banish 
 and offend rather than to listen and 
 conciliate. 
 
 The winter of 1862-3 * s now by com- 
 mon consent regarded as the darkest 
 period of the war for the Union. The 
 failure of Burnside's plans and the defeat 
 of Hooker at Chancellorsville severely 
 tried the discipline and organization of 
 the Army of the Potomac, and filled the 
 loyal North with alarm, while it corre- 
 spondingly encouraged the Confederate 
 government and raised the confidence of 
 its army. As soon as the winter was over 
 and the roads were settled Lee assumed 
 the initiative, drove Hooker back from 
 the Rappahannock, crossed the Poto- 
 mac, advanced confidently to Chambers- 
 burg and pushed his cavalry as far north 
 as Harrisburg and York. 
 
 Hooker had also proven himself to 
 be incompetent, and desperate as the 
 measure was, the Washington govern- 
 ment relieved him in the midst of an 
 
60 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 active campaign, and entrusted the army 
 and its fortunes to the direction of Major 
 General George G. Meade, a gallant and 
 able soldier, who checked the high tide 
 of rebellion at Gettysburg on the 2nd 
 and 3rd of July, 1863. During this 
 campaign Smith, who was on leave of 
 absence when it began, made haste to 
 offer his services, without conditions, and 
 was at once sent to Harrisburg to assist 
 Major General Couch, who had been 
 assigned to the command of the Penn- 
 sylvania and New York militia. Taking 
 command of an improvised division, 
 he moved against the enemy, then 
 threatening Carlisle, with all the assur- 
 ance of a veteran, and while the prompt 
 retreat of the enemy prevented any 
 severe engagement, the movement was 
 entirely efficacious. With the true in- 
 stincts of a soldier he pressed on in the 
 direction of the Confederate army, and 
 took part in its pursuit from Gettysburg 
 back to Virginia. Curiously enough, 
 instead of commending and thanking 
 him and his raw troops for their gallant 
 services, the Secretary of War ordered 
 his arrest for taking his command be- 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 6 I 
 
 yond the limits of Pennsylvania, for the 
 special defence of which the militia had 
 been called out, but fortunately the re- 
 monstrance of General Couch caused this 
 order to be recalled, and the gallant but 
 unappreciated general again withdrew 
 from the field, as soon as the scare was 
 over and his forces were permitted to 
 return to their homes. 
 
 It will be remembered that the news 
 of Lee's defeat and his retreat from 
 Gettysburg reached the country on the 
 4th of July, and that the same day was 
 made triply memorable by the capture 
 of Vicksburg with Pemberton's entire 
 army of 30,000 men with all their guns 
 and ammunitions. These two striking 
 events threw the country into the wildest 
 enthusiasm. Even the most despond- 
 ent now became confident that the 
 Southern Confederacy would soon be 
 destroyed, and that the triumphant 
 Union would be finally re-established. 
 But this confidence was destined to be 
 rudely shaken. 
 
 Later in the summer, taking advant- 
 age of the lull in operations elsewhere, 
 the Confederate leaders sent Longstreet's 
 
6l GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 splendid corps of veterans from Vir- 
 ginia, and that part of Johnston's army 
 which had been paroled, together with 
 such detachments as could be got from 
 Alabama, to reinforce Bragg, who had 
 been driven by Rosecrans from Middle 
 Tennessee to Northern Georgia. Turn- 
 ing fiercely upon his over-confident pur- 
 suer, as soon as his reinforements were at 
 hand, Bragg struck a staggering blow at 
 Chickamauga, which not only came near 
 giving Chattanooga back to him, but 
 filled the northern states with consterna- 
 tion. The war was not only not ended, 
 but had burst forth with renewed vigor. 
 Reinforcements in large numbers were 
 hurried forward from all parts of the 
 country to Chattanooga. Hooker, with 
 Howard's and Slocum's corps, was sent 
 out by rail from Virginia, while the 
 greater part of Grant's Army of the 
 Tennessee was withdrawn from the lower 
 Mississippi, where it was resting after 
 the capture of Vicksburg, and marched 
 over-land from Memphis to the same 
 place. The separate departments in the 
 Mississippi Valley were consolidated 
 into a military grand division, under the 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 6% 
 
 supreme command of General Grant, 
 and what turned out to be of almost 
 equal importance was the fact that Brig- 
 adier General William F. Smith was 
 relieved from service in West Virginia, 
 where he had been recently assigned to 
 duty, and sent to contribute his part 
 towards strengthening the national grasp 
 upon the vast region of which Chatta- 
 nooga was justly considered the strategic 
 center. 
 
 Whatever the government at that 
 time may have thought of him as a com- 
 mander of troops, it is certain that it 
 was willing to recognize and use his ex- 
 perience and marked intellectual resour- 
 ces as an engineer officer to their fullest 
 extent. As it turned out, it could not 
 have paid him a greater compliment, nor 
 given him a better opportunity for dis- 
 tinction. His fame had gone before 
 him, and on his arrival at Chattanooga, 
 although he preferred the command of 
 troops, he was assigned at once to duty 
 as Chief Engineer of the Department 
 and Army of the Cumberland. For- 
 tunately this gave him the control, not 
 only of the engineer troops and mate- 
 
64 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 rials, and the engineer operations of that 
 army, but carried with it the right and 
 duty of knowing the army's condition 
 and requirements as well as all the plans 
 which might be considered for extricat- 
 ing it from the extraordinary perils and 
 difficulties which surrounded it. 
 
 Although efforts have been made at 
 various times and by various writers, to 
 minimize these perils and difficulties, it 
 cannot be denied that the situation of 
 that army was at that epoch an exceed- 
 ingly grave one. It had been rudely 
 checked, if not completely beaten, in 
 one of the most desperate and bloody 
 battles of the war, and shut up in Chat- 
 tanooga by Bragg's army on the south, 
 and by an almost impassable mountain 
 region on the north and west. Its com- 
 munication by rail with its secondary 
 base at Bridgeport, and with its primary 
 base at Nashville, had been broken by 
 the Confederate cavalry and rendered 
 most uncertain. Its supplies were scanty 
 and growing daily less, while its artillery 
 horses and draft mules were dying by 
 hundreds, for lack of forage. The only 
 safe wagon roads to the rear were by a 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 6$ 
 
 long and circuitous route through the 
 mountains north of the Tennessee River, 
 which was besides so rough and muddy 
 that the teams could haul hardly enough 
 for their own subsistence, much less an 
 adequate supply for the troops. 
 
 All the contemporary accounts go to 
 show that Rosecrans, while personally 
 brave enough, was himself more or less 
 confused and excited by the great disaster 
 which had overtaken his army at Chick- 
 amauga. H e had been cut off and greatly 
 shaken by the overthrow of his right 
 wing, and consequently retired with it 
 to Chattanooga. Notwithstanding this 
 unfortunate withdrawal and his failure to 
 rejoin the organized portion of his army, 
 which under General George H.Thomas, 
 held on firmly to its position against 
 every attack, those who knew Rosecrans 
 best still believed him to be a most loyal 
 and gallant gentleman who was anxious 
 and willing to do all that could be done 
 to save his army and maintain its ad- 
 vanced position. But there is no satis- 
 factory evidence that up to the time he 
 turned over his command to his succes- 
 sor, he had formed any adequate or com- 
 
66 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 prehensive plan for supplying it or 
 getting it ready to resume the offensive. 
 Every general in it knew that it needed 
 and must have supplies, and that the 
 only way to get them, without falling 
 back, was to open and keep open the 
 direct road or "cracker line" to Bridge- 
 port. But how and when this was to 
 be done was the great question. 
 
 Much has been written upon this sub- 
 ject; a military commission has had it 
 under consideration ; the records have 
 been consulted; a report has been made, 
 and comments upon it have been issued 
 by General Smith and his friends. Even 
 the late Secretary of War, Elihu Root, 
 has passed judgment upon it, and yet it 
 can be safely said that nothing has been 
 done to disturb the conclusion reached 
 at the time, that General Smith in con- 
 sultation with his superiors worked out 
 the plan as to how, when and by what 
 means the short supply line by the way 
 of Brown's Ferry and the Lookout Val- 
 ley should be opened and maintained. 
 He certainly secured its adoption first 
 by Thomas and afterwards by Grant, and 
 finally when he had arranged all the 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 6j 
 
 details of the complicated and delicate 
 operations, and had prepared all engi- 
 neer's materials and pontoons which 
 were required, he personally commanded 
 the troops and carried that part of the 
 plan which was based on Chattanooga, 
 to a successful conclusion. 
 
 When it is remembered that Rose- 
 crans had left Chattanooga, that he had 
 been succeeded by Thomas, and that 
 Grant himself had arrived on the ground 
 and assumed supreme command, before 
 the first practical step had been taken to 
 carry the plan into effect, and that the 
 plan itself involved a descent and pass- 
 age of the Tennessee River by night, 
 the defeat and capture of the enemy's 
 outposts, the laying of a pontoon bridge 
 across a broad and rapid river, the re- 
 building of the railroad, and its main- 
 tenance within easy reach of the enemy's 
 front for twenty-five miles, and that all 
 of this was done without the slightest 
 mishap and with but little loss, and that 
 it resulted in relieving the army from 
 want and in putting it in condition to re- 
 sume the offensive as soon as its rein- 
 forcements had arrived, some fair idea 
 
68 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 may be had of the value of General 
 Smith's services and the part he actually 
 performed in all that took place. If 
 General Rosecrans had actually con- 
 ceived 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 im- 
 mortalize him, but when Grant, Thomas 
 and all the other officers who were pres- 
 ent and in position to know what was 
 actualy 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. 
 If any additional testimony is needed 
 as to the masterful part played by Smith 
 at Chattanooga, it is found in the fact that 
 Grant made haste to attach him to his 
 own staff and to recommend him for pro- 
 motion to the grade of major-general to 
 take rank from the date of his original 
 appointment, declaring in support of his 
 recommendation that he felt " under 
 more than ordinary obligations for the 
 masterly manner in which he discharged 
 the duties of his position." Later he 
 recommended that Smith be put first of 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 69 
 
 all the army on the list for promotion, 
 adding : " He is possessed of one of the 
 clearest military heads in the army, is 
 very practical and industrious," and em- 
 phasized it all with the highly eulogistic 
 declaration that "no man in the army is 
 better qualified than he for the largest 
 military commands." 
 
 It is noteworthy that about the same 
 time General Butler with whom he had 
 served for a short season, made an appli- 
 cation to have General Smith re-assigned 
 to his command, but the Secretary of 
 War, having evidently forgotten his or- 
 der for Smith's arrest at the close of the 
 Gettysburg campaign, wrote : " The 
 services of William F. Smith, now Chief 
 Engineer in the Army of the Cumber- 
 land, are indispensible in that command, 
 and it will be impossible to assign him 
 to your Department." But this was not 
 all. General George H. Thomas, the 
 soul of honor and fair dealing on the 20th 
 of November, 1863, although General 
 Smith had already been transferred from 
 his own to the staff of General Grant, 
 formally recommended him for promo- 
 tion in the following striking and com- 
 
70 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 prehensive words : " For industry and 
 energy displayed by him from the time 
 of his reporting for duty at these head- 
 quarters, in organizing the Engineer 
 Department, and for his skillful execu- 
 tion of the movements at Brown's Ferry, 
 Tennessee, on the night of October 26th, 
 1 863, in surprising the enemy and throw- 
 ing a pontoon bridge acroos the Tennes- 
 see River at that point, a vitally import- 
 ant service necessary to the opening of 
 communications between Bridgeport and 
 Chattanooga." 
 
 Certainly no language could be more 
 clear and unequivocal than this, and yet, 
 as though General Thomas wished to 
 remove all chance of doubt as to whom 
 the highest credit was due, he declared 
 in a later and more formal official report: 
 "To Brigadier General William F. Smith, 
 Chief Engineer, should be accorded great 
 praise for the ingenuity which conceived 
 and the ability which executed the move- 
 ments at Brown's Ferry." While even 
 the best memory so long after the event 
 is but little to be depended upon for 
 details, it may serve especially when sup- 
 plementing the records, to strengthen 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 71 
 
 the conclusions therefrom. In this in- 
 stance it should be stated that it was per- 
 fectly well known to the late Charles A. 
 Dana, then present at Chattanooga as 
 Assistant Secretary of War, and also to 
 myself, who was serving at the time on 
 General Grant's staff as Inspector Gen- 
 eral, and was in daily contact with all the 
 leading officers, that it was General 
 Smith, and General Smith alone, who 
 conceived and carried out the plan actu- 
 ally used for the capture of Brown's 
 Ferry and the re-establishment of the 
 direct line of communication between 
 Chattanooga and Bridgeport. Indeed, 
 there was no question in that army, or 
 at that time, in regard to the matter. 
 Rosecrans was never mentioned in con- 
 nection with it, while Smith's praise was 
 in everybody's mouth till the close of 
 the campaign, not only for the Brown's 
 Ferry movement, but, what was still 
 more important, for the plan of opera- 
 tions against Bragg's position on Mis- 
 sionary Ridge. He it was who person- 
 ally familiarized himself with the terrain 
 in the entire field of operations, which, 
 with the mountains, valleys, rivers and 
 
"jl GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 creeks, that gave it its unique character, 
 was the most complicated and difficult 
 one of the entire war, if not the most 
 complicated and difficult one upon which 
 a great battle was ever fought. It was 
 he alone who worked out every detail 
 of the combinations and movements by 
 which the great victory of Missionary 
 Ridge was won. I state this upon my 
 own knowledge and not upon hearsay. 
 Moreover, it was conceded by all in 
 high command that Smith was easily the 
 leading strategist in that entire host. He 
 knew all the details of the ground and 
 all the difficulties to be overcome, better 
 than any other man. He studied them 
 more closely, and with more intelligence 
 than any other man, not only because it 
 was his duty to do so, but because he 
 was conscious of the portentous fact 
 now so commonly lost sight of that the 
 safety and success of the army depended 
 upon the discovery and adoption of a 
 feasible plan of action. Grant, the gen- 
 eralissimo, had neither the time nor op- 
 portunity to gather the facts. He was 
 neither an engineer nor strange as it may 
 seem, a close calculator of the chances. 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 73 
 
 He necessarily depended upon the Chief 
 Engineer, and the criticism which was 
 sure to come from others, to gather and 
 sift the data upon which final action must 
 be based. Thomas was there from the 
 first, able, methodical and invincible, a 
 great field tactician, but not specially 
 distinguished for his knowledge of engi- 
 neering, grand tactics or strategy. Sher- 
 man came afterwards. He was bold, 
 active and energetic, and had a fine eye 
 for topography. He knew as well as 
 anyone what could be done and what 
 could not be done by an army, but he 
 came too late to take part in the original 
 investigations, or to do anything more 
 than to accept the part assigned to him, 
 and from an examination of the ground 
 say whether or not he could carry it out. 
 The important fact is that Smith was, be- 
 yond any question, the first mind among 
 them all for working out just such prob- 
 lems as confronted the leaders of the 
 Union army at Chattanooga, and that task 
 was by common consent assigned to him. 
 The responsibility was Grant's. His 
 judgment and resolution must necessarily 
 decide and execute, but it was Smith's 
 
74 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 place to gather the facts and work out the 
 details of one of the most complicated 
 military problems that was ever presented 
 for solution, and it can hardly be too 
 much to say that he discharged his task 
 with such patience, skill and success as 
 to justly entitle himself to be known in 
 history as the Strategist of Chattanooga. 
 Were his distinguished associates living, 
 it cannot be doubted they would will- 
 ingly concede that honor to him. In 
 their official reports and correspondence 
 at the time they went far beyond the 
 usual limit to give him praise, and 
 although Grant finally withdrew his 
 friendship from him, for reasons which 
 will be given hereafter, he never in the 
 slightest degree withdrew or modified the 
 praise he had awarded him for his servi- 
 ces in the Chattanooga campaign. 
 
 But to return to the details of the 
 plan of operations. It was Smith who 
 discovered the possibility of turning 
 Bragg's position on Missionary Ridge, 
 by the Army of the Tennessee. After 
 personal examination of the lay of the 
 ground he suggested that Sherman's 
 army coming up from Bridgeport through 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 7$ 
 
 LookoutValley should cross to the north 
 side of the Tennessee by the bridge 
 at Brown's Ferry, and after passing to 
 the east side of Moccasin Point, under 
 cover of the woods, to a position oppo- 
 site the mouth of Chickamauga Creek, 
 should re-cross the Tennessee River, by 
 a bridge to be thrown under cover of 
 darkness, and land on the end of Mis- 
 sionary Ridge with the obvious purpose 
 of marching along the Ridge and rolling 
 up and destroying Bragg's army, or 
 taking it in reverse and driving it from 
 its line of supply and retreat. As early 
 as the 8th of November, Mr. Dana, 
 writing to the Secretary of War, speaks 
 of a reconnoissance made by Thomas, 
 Smith and Brannan on the north side 
 of the river to a point opposite the 
 mouth of Citico Creek, near the head of 
 Missionary Ridge, which he thought at 
 that time "proved Smith's plan of at- 
 tack impractical." But further investi- 
 gation proved that a passage could be 
 made higher up the river, and when Sher- 
 man was taken to the place that had 
 been selected, examining both the place 
 for the bridge and its approaches, on 
 
y6 GENERALWILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 both sides of the river, with his usual 
 care, he closed his field glasses with a 
 snap and turning to Smith said with 
 emphasis: " Baldy, it can be done !" 
 
 And so much of it as referred to the 
 passage of the river was done without 
 halt or fault, just as it had been planned. 
 Sherman's entire army, except his rear 
 division that had been cut off by a break 
 in the Brown's Ferry floating bridge, was 
 brought upon the field just in the way 
 suggested and by the means which had 
 been provided by General Smith. I as- 
 sisted in transferring the troops to the 
 South bank of the river at the point of 
 crossing, by the use of the river steamer 
 " Dunbar," which had been put under 
 my command so as to make certain that 
 a sufficient force should be on the ground 
 in time to cover the construction of the 
 bridge. The bridge was laid successfully 
 and the army was transferred without 
 delay. Every stage of the movement 
 pointed to an onward and victorious 
 march against Bragg's commanding 
 position, and a complete victory was 
 finally achieved, but much to the sur- 
 prise and disappointment of all, it was 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 77 
 
 not attained at the time nor in the way 
 that had been expected. The prear- 
 ranged plan, so far as it concerns Sher- 
 man's army, had no other legitimate 
 purpose than to land it on Bragg's ex- 
 posed right flank and double him up or 
 drive him from his regular line of supply 
 and retreat. And there is nothing more 
 certain than that there was no man in 
 authority on either side who intended 
 the battle to be fought as it was actually 
 fought, nor who seriously expected the 
 victory to be won in the way it finally 
 was won by Thomas's army, and not by 
 Sherman's. 
 
 It is here worthy of remark that for 
 nearly a quarter of a century both Grant 
 and Sherman believed and contended — 
 in fact both died in the belief — that 
 Sherman's lodgement on the foot-hills 
 at the north end of Missionary Ridge, 
 and his unsuccessful attack from that 
 place, caused Bragg to so weaken his 
 center by withdrawing troops from his 
 center and left, to resist Sherman, that 
 Thomas met with but little resistance 
 when he advanced to the attack about 
 ten hours later, in obedience to Grant's 
 
78 GENERALWILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 personal order. But it has been shown 
 by irrefutable testimony, and is now 
 conceded, that there is not a word of 
 truth in this supposition — "that nothing 
 of the kind occurred," and that in face of 
 all statements and suppositions to the 
 contrary, however natural they may have 
 seemed at the time, "not a single regi- 
 ment, nor a single piece of artillery," 
 not even "a single Confederate soldier 
 was withdrawn from Thomas's front to 
 Sherman's on the final day of the battle. 
 All the Confederate reports are clear and 
 specific on that point." 
 
 The simple fact is that the plan of op- 
 erations for Sherman were clear and per- 
 fect, and they were carried out in their 
 initial stage without fault or accident, 
 but their execution in the final and vital 
 stage was marred by Sherman himself 
 or by his subordinates, who never reached 
 the point from which they could strike a 
 fatal blow, or from which they could 
 have taken possession of Bragg's com- 
 munications with the rear. 
 
 That Sherman was entirely satisfied 
 with Smith's part in carrying out the 
 plan, is shown beyond dispute by his re- 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 79 
 
 port, which bears " willing testimony to 
 the completeness of this whole business. 
 All the officers charged with the work 
 were present and manifested a skill which 
 I cannot praise too highly. I have never 
 beheld any work done so quietly, so well, 
 and I doubt if the history of war can 
 show a bridge of * * 1350 feet, laid 
 down so noiselessly and well in so short 
 a time. I attribute it to the genius and in- 
 telligence of General William F. Smith." 
 The genuineness of this praise is strik- 
 ingly attested by General Grant, who 
 almost immediately after the battle again 
 urged the Secretary of War to give Smith 
 the promotion which he had previously 
 recommended. Unmistakably referring 
 to the part taken by Smith in making 
 and carrying out the plans which had 
 yielded such notable results, he wrote, 
 among other things : " Recent events 
 have entirely satisfied me of his great 
 capabilities and merits. I hasten to re- 
 new the recommendation and to urge it." 
 Shortly afterwards Grant followed 
 this letter by another asking for Smith's 
 assignment to the command of East 
 Tennessee, to succeed the luckless Burn- 
 
8o GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 side, with whom he was dissatisfied, but 
 in so doing he intimated that it would 
 be agreeable to him if the government 
 should, in pursuance of a personal sug- 
 gestion sent to the War Darpartment 
 about the same time by Mr. Dana, give 
 General Smith even a higher command. 
 It is now well known that Grant had in 
 mind the command of the Army of the 
 Potomac, and not only then, but fre- 
 quently afterwards, assured General 
 Smith of his support for that great 
 position. 
 
 The friendship of Grant, Sherman 
 and Thomas, for Smith, was at that time 
 genuine and unmistakable. Neither of 
 these great generals had ever served 
 with him before. He was a comparative 
 stranger to them, and that he should 
 have come amongst them from the East 
 under a cloud as he did, and should in 
 less than two months have won such un- 
 usual praise and recommendations is 
 stronger testimony than their words 
 themselves to the masterful part he had 
 played at Chattanooga, and in recogni- 
 tion of which the President made haste 
 to promote him again to the rank of 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 8 I 
 
 Major General, at that time the highest 
 grade in the service. It is to be regret- 
 ted, however, that the vacancy made by 
 his previous non-confirmation, having 
 long since been filled, and opposition 
 having arisen on the part of other gen- 
 erals already promoted and confirmed, 
 the President did not feel justified in 
 dating his new commission back to the 
 date of his original appointment. The 
 action of the President, the Secretary of 
 War, who concurred in it, and the Sen- 
 ate which acted upon it, this time with- 
 out reference to the military committee, 
 set the seal of government approval in 
 the most signal manner upon the serv- 
 ices and abilities of General Smith. No 
 subsequent action or criticism can de- 
 prive him of the great praise and un- 
 usual honors which were then bestowed 
 upon him. 
 
 But a new and far less fortunate era 
 was about to open upon General Smith's 
 career. Grant's work in the west had, 
 reached its close, and his extraordinary 
 success had secured for him the full rank 
 of Lieutenant General, with the com- 
 mand of all the armies of the United 
 
82 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 States. It at once became known to me, 
 and to others serving at that time on 
 his staff, that it was from the first, and 
 till he went east to take charge of his 
 new duties, Grant's intention to assign 
 Smith to the command of the Army of 
 the Potomac. He had come to trust his 
 intelligence, his judgment and his ex- 
 traordinary coup d'oeil implicitly, and to 
 regard him as a strategist of consummate 
 ability. He made no concealment of 
 his confidence in him, nor of his inten- 
 tions in his behalf, and there can be but 
 little doubt that he would have carried 
 those intentions into effect could he have 
 done so without injustice to others. But 
 it is also true that after going to the 
 eastern theatre of war and conferring 
 with the President, Secretary Stanton, 
 General Meade and General Butler, the 
 Lieutenant General completely changed 
 his mind, not only as to the proper plan 
 of campaign for the army of the Potomac, 
 which he had not previously visited or 
 studied, but as to the disposition to be 
 made of Smith and the other leading 
 generals. In all this he had the saga- 
 cious advice and support of General 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 83 
 
 Rawlins, his Chief of Staff, and doubt- 
 less of other influential persons. Exactly 
 why he did so, or what were the details 
 of the argument which brought him to 
 his final conclusions, is still one of the 
 most interesting unsettled questions of 
 the war. The general argument has 
 already been indicated in the compre- 
 hensive language of Rawlins and that 
 was doubtless strengthened by Mr. Lin- 
 coln, whose homely but astute reasoning 
 convinced him that the better and safer 
 line of operations was overland against 
 Lee's army wherever it might be en- 
 countered, and not through a widely 
 eccentric movement by water to a sec- 
 ondary base on the James River and 
 thence against Richmond. 
 
 It is also doubtless true that finding 
 Meade, who had shown himself to be a 
 prudent and safe commander, if not a 
 brilliant one, not only favorable to the 
 overland route, but deservedly well 
 thought of by the President, the cabinet 
 and the army, while Smith, on the other 
 hand, if not openly opposed to this plan 
 of operations, was somewhat persistent 
 as was his custom, in favoring a campaign 
 
84 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 from the lower James, or even from the 
 sounds of North Carolina, Grant reached 
 the conclusion that it would be better to 
 retain Meade in immediate command of 
 the principal army, and to place Smith 
 over all the troops that could be mobil- 
 ized from Fortress Monroe in Butler's 
 department. Whatever may have been 
 the open or secret influences at work, or 
 the reasoning based upon the facts, this 
 was Grant's first decision, but it is to be 
 observed that the plan as adopted was 
 afterwards fatally modified by permitting 
 Butler, notwithstanding his partiality 
 for Smith, as shown by his recent request 
 for his re-assignment to his department, 
 to take the field in person, with Smith 
 commanding one of his army corps and 
 Gillmore the other. In other words, 
 Grant was not altogether a free agent, 
 though the government had ostensibly 
 given him a free hand. Of course, 
 Smith knew that in any case he could 
 not be permitted to make all the plans, 
 even if he held the first subordinate 
 command, and it is always possible that 
 he had not specially endeared himself 
 to the leading officers of the eastern 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 85 
 
 armies, but there can hardly be a doubt 
 that he would have given efficient and 
 loyal support to Grant without reference 
 to the plan of operations which it might 
 be found necessary to adopt. 
 
 Without pausing here to recapitulate 
 the arguments for and against the line 
 and general plan of operations actually 
 selected by General Grant, or to con- 
 sider further his choice of subordinate 
 commanders, it may be well to call at- 
 tention to the fact that the organization 
 and arrangements made by him for the 
 control and co-operation of the forces 
 in Viginia, are now generally regarded 
 by military critics as having been nearly 
 as faulty as they could have been. It 
 will be remembered that Meade, with a 
 competent staff, had immediate com- 
 mand of the Army of the Potomac, 
 but was followed closely wherever he 
 went by General Grant and his staff. 
 At the same time Burnside, with the 
 Ninth Corps, having an older commis- 
 sion than Meade, and having been once 
 in command of the Army of the Poto- 
 mac, was for reasons which must be re- 
 garded as largely sentimental, permitted 
 
86 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 to report directly to and receive his or- 
 ders directly from Grant, while Butler 
 with two army corps operating at first at 
 a considerable distance and later in a 
 semi-detached and less independent man- 
 ner, made his reports to and received 
 his instructions directly from Grant's 
 headquarters. 
 
 This arrangement, as might have been 
 foreseen, was fatal to coherent and prompt 
 co-operative action, and the result was 
 properly described by Grant himself as 
 comparable only to the work of a "balky 
 team." It was in the nature of things 
 impossible to make either the armies 
 or the separate army-corps work harmo- 
 niously and effectively together. The 
 orders issued from the different head- 
 quarters were necessarily lacking in uni- 
 formity of style and expression, and 
 failed to secure that prompt and unfail- 
 ing obedience that in operations extend- 
 ing over so wide and difficult a field was 
 absolutely essential, and this was entirely 
 independent of the merits of the different 
 generals or the peculiarities of their Chiefs 
 of Staff and Adjutants General. The 
 forces were too great; they were scat- 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 87 
 
 tered too widely over the field of oper- 
 ations; the conditions of the roads, the 
 width of the streams and the broken 
 and wooded features of the battle fields 
 were too various, and the means of trans- 
 port and supply were too inadequate to 
 permit of simultaneous and synchronous 
 movements, even if they had been intel- 
 ligently provided for, and the generals 
 had uniformly done their best to carry 
 them out. 
 
 But when it is considered that Grant's 
 own staff, although presided over by a 
 very able man from civil life, and con- 
 taining a number of zealous and experi- 
 enced officers from both the regular army 
 and the volunteers, was not organized 
 for the arrangement of the multifarious 
 details and combinations of the marches 
 and battles of a great campaign, and in- 
 deed under Grant's special instructions 
 made no efforts to arrange them, it will 
 be apparent that properly co-ordinated 
 movements could not be counted upon. 
 When it is furtherconsidered that Meade, 
 Burnside, Butler, Hunter and afterwards 
 Sheridan, as well as the corps com- 
 manders, were left almost invariably to 
 
88 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 work out the details for themselves, it 
 will be seen that prompt, orderly, simul- 
 taneous and properly co-operating move- 
 ments on an extended scale, from differ- 
 ent parts of the same theatre of opera- 
 tion, and that properly combined marches 
 and battle movements were almost im- 
 possible. As a fact they rarely ever 
 took place, and it is not to be wondered 
 at that the best officers of every grade 
 in the armies operating in Virginia found 
 much throughout the campaign, from 
 beginning to end, to criticise and com- 
 plain of. Nor is it to be thought strange 
 that many of their best movements were 
 successful rather because of good luck 
 than of good management, or failed 
 rather because of their defective execu- 
 tion, than by the enemy's better arrange- 
 ments or superior generalship, though it 
 is evident that the Confederates kept 
 their forces better in hand and operated 
 more in masses than did the Union 
 generals. Their organizations were sim- 
 pler and more compact, their generals 
 were better chosen and better supported. 
 Operating generally on the defensive 
 and fighting behind breastworks when- 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 89 
 
 ever it was possible, it was all the more 
 necessary to bring overwhelming forces 
 to bear against them, in order to ensure 
 their final overthrow. In addition to 
 the defective organization and inefficient 
 staff arrangements which have been men- 
 tioned, neither the Union government 
 nor the Union generals ever made pro- 
 visions, or seemed to understand the 
 necessity, for a sufficient preponderance 
 of force, to neutralize the advantages 
 which the Confederate armies enjoyed, 
 when fighting on the defensive, or to 
 render victory over them reasonably cer- 
 tain. 
 
 Looking back over the long series of 
 partial victories, vexatious delays and 
 humiliating failures, and considering the 
 inadequate organization and defective 
 staff arrangements for which Grant was 
 mainly responsible, it is evident that the 
 terrible losses in the Union army in the 
 overland campaign were due quite as 
 frequently to the latter causes as to in- 
 competency or lack of vigor on the part 
 of the subordinate commanders. The 
 blind grapplings in the forests of the 
 Wilderness could not be helped, when 
 
90 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 both armies were marching through it, 
 for they could not see each other through 
 the tangled underbrush till they were 
 almost face to face, but it is now certain 
 that if the marches of the Union army 
 corps had been properly timed and prop- 
 erly conducted, they could have reached 
 the open country before the Confederate 
 corps could have engaged them. But 
 when the senseless assaults of fortified 
 positions, which occurred in endless suc- 
 cession, from Spottsylvania Court House 
 to Petersburg are considered, it will be 
 impossible to find sufficient excuse for 
 them. They were in nearly every case 
 the direct result of defective staff arrange- 
 ments and the lack of proper prevision. 
 In a few instances they were due to posi- 
 tive incompetency on the part of sub- 
 ordinate commanders, while on several 
 notable occasions there was a woeful lack 
 of responsible oversight and supervision 
 on the part of those whose duty it 
 should have been to exercise both. Be- 
 fore the campaign was half over it had 
 come to be an axiom among both officers 
 and men that a well-defended rifle trench 
 could not be carried by a direct attack 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 9 I 
 
 without the most careful preparation nor 
 even then without fearful loss. Such un- 
 dertakings were far too costly, and far too 
 frequently ended in failure, to justify 
 them when they could be avoided. But 
 no experience, however frequent or 
 bloody, no remonstrance however forci- 
 ble, could eradicate the practice of resort- 
 ing to them occasionally. Rawlins was 
 utterly opposed to them and never failed 
 to inveigh against them but the advice of 
 more than one trusted and influential 
 staff officer was uniformly in favor of 
 assaulting fortified positions. The fav- 
 orite refrain at general headquarters is 
 said to have been " Smash 'em up ! 
 Smash 'em up!" 
 
 It was with special reference to the 
 application of this method of procedure 
 at Cold Harbor, that General Smith 
 afterwards gave vent to his indignation 
 in words of the bitterest criticism. It 
 will be remembered that the entire army 
 confronting the enemy had advanced on 
 that fatal day in compliance with a gen- 
 eral order to attack "all along the line," 
 which was done in a half-hearted, desul- 
 tory manner, foreboding failure and 
 
92 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 defeat. Not a soul among the generals 
 or in the righting line dreamed of suc- 
 cess and not a commander from highest 
 to lowest except Smith and Upton, 
 made any adequate preparation to achieve 
 it. Officers and men alike felt that they 
 had been ordered to a sure defeat. 
 Knowing intuitively what awaited them, 
 they wrote their names on scraps of 
 paper and pinned them to their coats in 
 order that their bodies might be identi- 
 fied after the slaughter was over. This 
 done they advanced in long and waver- 
 ing lines of blue against the enemy's 
 bristling breastworks and rifle pits, and 
 were mowed down like ripe grain before 
 the scythe. In almost as short a time 
 as it takes to recount the useless sacrifice, 
 over twelve thousand Union soldiers 
 were killed and wounded, without shak- 
 ing the enemy's position or inflicting 
 serious injury upon him. 
 
 Smith and his gallant corps, did their 
 part bravely in the futile attack. They 
 were just back from Butler's abortive 
 movement to Bermuda Hundred, in 
 which by good management on the part 
 of the General, and by steadiness on the 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 93 
 
 part of the men, they had saved the 
 expedition from a disgraceful defeat. 
 They were not only hungry and tired, 
 but disgusted with the incompetency of 
 Butler and his abortive plans. The 
 situation which confronted them was 
 most discouraging. They were on new 
 and unknown ground, but they had not 
 yet worn themselves out against Lee's 
 veterans and therefore they cheerfully 
 took the position assigned them. Smith 
 with his usual foresight and deliberation 
 made haste to examine the ground in his 
 front, and by availing himself of the 
 advantages which his trained eye soon 
 detected he was enabled to direct his 
 main attack along a sheltering depression 
 against a weak point, where he reached 
 and broke through the enemy's line. He 
 needed only the prompt and vigorous 
 support that intelligent prevision and 
 co-operation would have given, to make 
 his lodgement safe and his victory cer- 
 tain. But as no one above him seems 
 to have expected victory, no proper pro- 
 vision was made to ensure it. No sup- 
 ports were at hand. Each corps com- 
 mander was looking out for his own 
 
94 GENERALWILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 front only, and not for his neighbor's. 
 The Confederates were more wise and 
 more alert, and seeing the danger which 
 threatened the continuity of their line, 
 made haste to concentrate their forces 
 against Smith and of course hurled him 
 back with terrible loss. 
 
 Smarting under this unnecessary dis- 
 aster, and grieving over the useless loss 
 and suffering of his gallant men, it was 
 but natural that he should vent his feel- 
 ings in sharp and caustic denunciation 
 of all who were in any degree respon- 
 sible for the blunder. He was especially 
 outspoken with Grant and Rawlins, 
 whose confidence he had won in the 
 Chattanooga campaign, and with whom 
 he had since been on terms of the 
 closest intimacy and friendship. It is 
 but just to note that they did not at that 
 time appear to consider his criticism as 
 in any sense directed against them nor 
 did they rebuke or condemn it, but to the 
 contrary they gave him every assurance 
 of sympathy and approval. 
 
 But Smith although one of the heavi- 
 est sufferers, was not the only or even the 
 severest critic, of the mismanagement or 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 95 
 
 lack of management which characterized 
 that disastrous day. The result was 
 most demoralizing to the army. Officers 
 of every grade were unreserved in their 
 condemnation. The newspaper criti- 
 cism was wide-spread and continuous. 
 It was with special reference to the 
 useless slaughter at Cold Harbor that the 
 gallant and invincible Upton, then com- 
 ing to be widely recognized as the best 
 practical soldier of his day, immediately 
 wrote in confidence to his sister. "I am 
 disgusted with the generalship displayed. 
 Our men have in many instances been 
 foolishly and wantonly sacraflced. * * * 
 Thousands of lives might have been 
 spared by the exercise of a little skill; 
 but as it is, the courage of the men is 
 expected to obviate ail difficulties. I 
 must confess that so long as I see such 
 incompetency, there is no grade in the 
 army to which I do not aspire." Later 
 referring to the same battle, he adds: 
 "On that day [at Cold Harbor] we had 
 a murderous engagement. I say murder- 
 ous, because we were recklessly ordered 
 to assault the enemy's entrenchments 
 knowing neither their strength nor 
 
g6 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 position. * * * I am very sorry to add 
 that I have seen but little generalship 
 during the campaign. Some of our 
 corps commanders are not fit to be 
 corporals. Lazy and indifferent they 
 will not even ride along their lines, yet 
 without hesitancy they will order us to 
 attack the enemy, no matter what their 
 position or numbers." As the assault on 
 Cold Harbor was a general one, it follows 
 f course that it must have been ordered 
 y someone higher in authority than 
 either Smith of the Eighteenth or Upton 
 of the Sixth Corps. 
 
 It was doubtless in allusion to this and 
 to similar instances that the veracious 
 and outspoken Humphreys, at that time 
 Meade's Chief of Staff, and afterwards 
 the peerless commander of the Second 
 Army Corps, wrote: "The incessant 
 movements day and night for so long a 
 period, the constant close contact with 
 the enemy during all that time, the 
 almost daily assaults upon intrench- 
 ments having entanglements in front 
 and defended by artillery and musketry 
 in front and flank, exhausted both offi- 
 cers and men." Although all the orders 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 97 
 
 which brought about this unfortunate 
 condition of affairs must have passed 
 through Humphreys himself, it is 
 obvious that they could not have origi- 
 nated with him, but must have come 
 from higher authority. 
 
 If the imperturbable and painstaking 
 Smith, fresh from the triumphs and con- 
 fidences of Chattanooga, should have 
 lost his patience under these distressing 
 circumstances, and declared to General 
 Grant, frankly and fearlessly as he did 
 as was clearly his duty, that "there had 
 been a fearful slaughter at Cold Har- 
 bor," surely it should not have been 
 brought up against him later as one of 
 the reasons for relieving him from the 
 command of the troops of the Depart- 
 ment of the James, to which he had 
 been assigned after this criticism had 
 been made. If in the same interview 
 Grant acknowledged, as it is credibly 
 stated he did, "that there had been a 
 butchery at Cold Harbor, but that he 
 had said nothing about it, because it 
 could do no good," his remembrance 
 of the circumstance to the prejudice of 
 Smith, must be regarded as an after- 
 
98 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 thought which had its origin in some 
 cause not yet fully explained. 
 
 It is altogether likely that Smith's 
 criticism was repeated to others less 
 entitled to speak than himself and that 
 it was exaggerated into a direct attack 
 upon both Meade and Grant, which 
 could not be passed over lightly. Be 
 this as it may, it must be apparent that 
 it was fully justified as a mere matter of 
 military criticism and quite independent 
 of both Smith and Upton, it was gen- 
 erally approved both by the army and 
 the country at large. 
 
 It was shortly after the assault in 
 question, while I was commanding a 
 division of cavalry, that I visited Grant's 
 headquarters. During the conversation 
 which followed the Lieutenant General 
 asked me : " What is the matter with 
 this army?" To which I replied: "It 
 will take too long to explain, but I can 
 tell you how to cure it. Give Parker [the 
 Indian Chief] a tomahawk, a supply of 
 commissary whiskey and a scalping knife 
 and send him out with orders to bring 
 in the scalps of general officers." Dur- 
 ing this same visit and frequently after- 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 99 
 
 wards Rawlins, in a white rage, inveighed 
 against the desperate practice of blindly 
 assaulting fortified lines, and denounced 
 in unmeasured terms all who favored 
 them or failed to make adequate prepara- 
 tion for success, where any just excuse 
 could be found for resorting to them. 
 It is worthy of remark, without refer- 
 ence to the origin of the practice, or to 
 the persons who were responsible for it, 
 that General Grant alone had the power 
 to stop it, and that later there was a 
 noticeable change in the Army of the 
 Potomac in regard to that practice, 
 although it should be noted that Sher- 
 man followed it as an example in his 
 desperate, but unsuccessful assault of the 
 enemy's impregnable fortifications on 
 Kenesaw Mountain, for the purpose, as 
 he frankly explained, of showing that his 
 army could also assault strongly fortified 
 lines. 
 
 That such a costly practice could 
 spring up and obtain imitation in our 
 army is a striking commentary upon the 
 lack of intelligent supervision over the 
 essential details of its daily operations. 
 It affords ample justification for again 
 
 LofC. 
 
IOO GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 calling attention to the fact that in this 
 respect the Confederate Army was much 
 better off and more fortunate than the 
 Union Army. Its generals, although 
 not without fault, were much more care- 
 ful in the management of their military 
 details than ours were. Jefferson Davis 
 was himself an educated soldier of great 
 capacity, and selected none but educated 
 and experienced military men for high 
 command. While Lee's staff was far 
 from faultless in organization, he had 
 supreme authority in the field, with no 
 army or independent corps commanders 
 between him and the troops. His army 
 corps were led by generals of the first 
 rank, who took their orders directly from 
 him, and no unnecessary time was lost 
 in their transmission or execution, nor 
 was there any uncertainty as to whose 
 duty it was to work out and superin- 
 tend the details of attack and defence. 
 But whatever may be said in further 
 elucidation of this important subject, I 
 cannot help expressing regret that Gen- 
 eral Smith, who had shown such rare 
 talents in another field, for planning and 
 executing the most complicated move- 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT IOI 
 
 ments, should not have had in this an 
 opportunity to add to his fame, instead 
 of being sent out as a subordinate to a 
 general who, however great his talents 
 as a lawyer and a militiaman, had devel- 
 oped no special aptitude as an army com- 
 mander. In this connection the import- 
 ant fact should be recalled that Generals 
 Barnard and Meigs, officers of the high- 
 est training and distinction, at the request 
 of General Grant, shortly after the fiasco 
 of Bermuda Hundred, had been sent by 
 the Washington authorities to make an 
 investigation of General Butler's fitness 
 for command in the field, and had with 
 due deliberation reported that while 
 " General Butler was a man of rare and 
 great ability, he had not had either the 
 training or experience to enable him to 
 direct and control movements in battle." 
 It was doubtless the verification of this 
 report to Grant's satisfaction that caused 
 him finally to relieve that General from 
 duty in the field, and in doing so to incur 
 both his active and his covert hostility. 
 Meanwhile however valid and import- 
 ant, in either a military or a political 
 sense, the considerations may have been 
 
102 GENERALWILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 which sent Butler out in command of 
 an army with such men as Smith and 
 Gilmore, both professional soldiers of 
 the highest standing, as his subordinates, 
 the arrangement was unfortunate from 
 beginning to end, and from its very 
 nature it was foredoomed to failure. It 
 is to be observed that while these admir- 
 able soldiers were constantly with their 
 troops moving against or confronting the 
 enemy, Butler was generally at Fortress 
 Monroe, or at a more central point some 
 distance in the rear, and when his orders 
 were not ill-timed or inapplicable to the 
 case in hand, they were not infrequently 
 deemed impracticable, or at cross purposes 
 with the convictions of the generals whose 
 duty it was to carry them into effect. 
 The simple and incontrovertible fact 
 is that General Butler's presence with 
 that army was from the start embarrass- 
 ing if not absolutely unnecessary. It 
 interposed an intermediate commander 
 between the generalissimo and two entire 
 army corps, and however good the inten- 
 tions of that commander or great his 
 abilities, his principal influence was neces- 
 sarily to derange and delay the orderly 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT IO3 
 
 conduct and development of the cam- 
 paign. It was productive of no good 
 whatever, and was besides in direct viola- 
 tion of the rule of experience which 
 teaches that better results are to be 
 expected with one poor commander in 
 full authority than with two or more 
 good ones liable to pull against each 
 other. 
 
 The chief conclusion to be reached 
 from these considerations, and from a 
 study of the records, in connection with 
 the writings and unpublished memoirs 
 of General Smith, is that his conduct 
 during the continuance of the arrange- 
 ment was not only natural and blame- 
 less, but that the failure of Butler's army 
 to play an important and decisive part, 
 was due primarily, if not entirely, to 
 Butler's own misunderstanding or mis- 
 management of what was entrusted to 
 him, or the inherent defects in the organ- 
 ization and staff arrangements of the 
 Union forces operating in Virginia. 
 Under the conditions as they actually 
 existed, effective co-operation and con- 
 trol, it has been shown, could^not have 
 been reasonably expected, and for this 
 
104 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 the verdict of the military critic and his- 
 torian must be that the Lieutenant Gen- 
 eral who had ample power, if he chose 
 to exercise it, was primarily responsible. 
 Under the incontrovertible facts of the 
 case it is difficult to see how this conclu- 
 sion can be avoided. 
 
 It will be recalled by those who have 
 read " Butler's Book," that in addition 
 to a number of trivial derelictions of 
 duty, General Smith was charged with 
 the more serious one of having failed 
 through negligence and an untimely ces- 
 sation of operations, to capture Peters- 
 burg, when it was claimed that all the 
 conditions were favorable to success. It 
 should also be recalled that several weeks 
 after this failure had taken place and 
 all the necessary explanations had been 
 made and considered, the President had, 
 on Grant's recommendation, relieved 
 Butler from further service in the field 
 and had assigned General Smith to 
 the command of the Eighteenth Corps 
 which was composed of the troops from 
 Butler's department, serving with the 
 Army of the Potomac. It should be 
 remembered at the same time that before 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT IO5 
 
 General Smith received this order he 
 had applied for and been granted leave 
 of absence on account of illness, or as 
 he explained, " because of his old trouble 
 with his head," and that while he was 
 absent, the Lieutenant General was by 
 some means never fully or satisfactorily 
 explained, induced to restore Butler to 
 his former command and to dispense 
 entirely with the services of General 
 Smith. In reply to a letter from Smith, 
 he authorized Colonel Comstock of his 
 staff to inform him that he had been 
 relieved " because of the impossibility 
 of his getting along with General But- 
 ler," who was his senior in rank. But 
 General Grant assured me about this 
 time that it was with great regret that he 
 had taken this action ; that he had tried 
 in vain to utilize Smith's great talents ; 
 that he had been too free in his criti- 
 cisms, and that Smith himself had made 
 it necessary that either he should be 
 relieved or that Meade, Burnside and 
 Butler should be deprived of command 
 and sent out of the army. Some con- 
 versation followed, in which it was sug- 
 gested that he should have given the 
 
I06 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 preference to the alternative as a means of 
 simplifying the organization and increas- 
 ing the efficiency of the army, and it is 
 a singular coincidence at least, that this 
 suggestion was partly carried into effect, 
 with most excellent results, by the relief 
 of both Butler and Burnside, shortly 
 afterwards, from the command of troops 
 in that theatre of operations. It has 
 besides long been a question among 
 military men whether still better results 
 would not have been obtained if Grant 
 had at the same time relieved Meade, 
 who was certainly a most competent and 
 loyal general, from the immediate com- 
 mand of the Army of the Potomac and 
 placed him instead at the head of an 
 army corps. 
 
 It may not be out of place here to 
 call attention to the fact that while no 
 specific limitations were ever put upon 
 the responsibilities of Meade as an army 
 commander, Grant thenceforth took up- 
 on himself a closer supervision of the 
 details of the campaign, while upon 
 many occasions during the final opera- 
 tions, he gave his orders directly to the 
 corps commanders, instead of sending 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 107 
 
 them through the regular official chan- 
 nels. The result of this practice after 
 it became confirmed, was in every case 
 beneficial, though it should be observed 
 that it was far from increasing the cor- 
 dial relations between Grant and Meade 
 or between their respective headquarters. 
 But to return to the breach between 
 Grant and Smith, to the exact state of 
 facts which led up to it, and to the im- 
 mediate pressure which finally brought 
 about Smith's relief from further com- 
 mand in the field. Much that is as 
 well forgotten, has been written about 
 this unfortunate episode. Smith felt to 
 the day of his death that he had been 
 misrepresented to Grant and unjustly 
 injured by his action. He always con- 
 tended that the whole truth had not 
 been told, and it must be confessed that 
 no consecutive and exhaustive analysis 
 of the case has ever been made. Per- 
 haps none can be made. But from such 
 information as I have been able to gather, 
 I have always supposed that Grant's 
 action was based upon Smith's criticisms, 
 exaggerated reports of which were made 
 by certain officers of Butler's staff with 
 
I05 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 whom Smith dined and spent the night 
 at Fortress Monroe on his way home, 
 that Butler presented these reports in 
 person to General Grant, without the 
 knowledge or concurrence of Meade or 
 Burnside, and made them the basis of a 
 demand for Smith's immediate relief. 
 Exactly what took place at the inter- 
 view must for reasons which will appear 
 hereafter, always remain a matter of con- 
 jecture. It however seems to be prob- 
 able that had General Smith deferred 
 his leave of absence till he had seated 
 himself firmly in his new command, or 
 had he been sent for and allowed to make 
 his own explanation, he would have been 
 spared the humiliation, which ended his 
 military career, while the country would 
 have continued to receive the assistance 
 of one of its greatest military minds. 
 
 General Smith, by his military writ- 
 ings, has not only refuted the unjust 
 criticisms of General Butler's Book, but 
 he has modestly and conclusively set 
 forth his own military services during 
 the various campaigns in which he took 
 part. He points out with pardonable 
 pride the friendship which sprang up 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT IO9 
 
 during the Chattanooga campaign, be- 
 tween himself and General Grant. He 
 makes it clear that his failure to capture 
 Petersburg was due to a number of 
 causes more or less potential and alto- 
 gether beyond his control. First among 
 them was the physical exhaustion of him- 
 self and his troops; second, an order 
 which was sent to him through the signal 
 corps from General Butler, who was all 
 day June 1 5 at Point Lookout Signal 
 Station, to stay his advance; and, third, 
 the failure of General Hancock, who was 
 with the Second Corps within supporting 
 distance, to take up the movement and 
 give the finishing stroke to the day's 
 work. To these should be added the 
 defective staff arrangements by which the 
 various forces in the field of operations 
 were controlled, the inadequate strength 
 of Smith's command, which was inex- 
 cusable where such a vast force was 
 within call, the lack of engineer officers 
 and of exact information as to the char- 
 acter of the ground over which the troops 
 were compelled to operate, and the total 
 absence of proper support and co-opera- 
 tion on the part of the Army of the 
 
I IO GENERALWILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 Potomac. Above all, it should be kept 
 in mind that the enemy held the defen- 
 sive and had interior lines upon which 
 he could throw his troops from point to 
 point on his threatened front, with 
 greater celerity than the attacking force 
 could be concentrated by outside lines 
 and across wide rivers against him. 
 
 When Smith began his movement 
 against Petersburg, which was to be in 
 the nature of a surprise, the greater 
 part of Grant's army was still north of 
 the James River, and both Meade and 
 Hancock allege that they were not noti- 
 fied that a new effort was to be made to 
 capture Petersburg by Smith alone, after 
 Butler had tried and failed with his whole 
 army to isolate and cut it off from Rich- 
 mond by the movement to Bermuda 
 Hundred. Both of these able officers 
 declare that if they had known in time 
 that Petersburg was to have been cap- 
 tured, Petersburg would have been cap- 
 tured. This simple statement, without 
 reference to its truth, which has never 
 been questioned, is conclusive evidence 
 that the staff" arrangements and the 
 organization of the machinery of com- 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT I I I 
 
 mand were fatally defective, for had it 
 been otherwise, every officer who could 
 have been called upon to take part in 
 the movement, or could have been 
 expected to co-operate with it, would 
 have been so clearly instructed as to 
 make his duty entirely plain. 
 
 General Smith, in explanation of why 
 he was relieved from command in the 
 field, not only reflects strongly upon the 
 conduct of General Butler, but endeavors 
 to show that General Grant "was forced" 
 by Butler to restore him to full com- 
 mand, in order to prevent the exposure 
 of his own conduct, yet even if this 
 were true it necessarily leaves both the 
 question of fact and the question of 
 motives in the dark. Certain letters 
 which passed between Smith, Grant, 
 Rawlins and Butler have been quoted, 
 for the purpose of illustrating the charac- 
 ter of the persons concerned. They 
 will be found in the Records and they 
 throw much light upon the subject, but 
 they still leave the reason of Smith's 
 removal in obscurity. 
 
 It cannot be denied that Smith was a 
 man of great talents and conspicuous 
 
112 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 services, with unusual powers of caustic 
 criticism, who had been badly injured by 
 the way in which his connection with the 
 Army of the James had been severed. 
 His views and conduct had been im- 
 pugned, not only then, but afterwards, 
 in both the newspapers and the personal 
 statements of the day, and hence it was 
 but natural that he should retort with 
 an appeal to the facts of a private nature 
 more or less commented upon at the 
 time, to expose the reasons for official 
 action and to vindicate his own conduct. 
 He strenuously contended that he was 
 under no obligation to conceal any 
 important facts of the case connected 
 either personally or officially with those 
 who were using him unkindly to the 
 prejudice of the public welfare, especially 
 where those facts were believed to be 
 a potential factor in influencing their 
 official acts and in shaping history. 
 
 It must be confessed that Grant's ex- 
 planations of his later attitude towards 
 Smith, and of the reasons for relieving 
 him and restoring Butler to command, 
 were neither full nor always stated in the 
 same terms. He ignores the subject 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT II3 
 
 entirely in his memoirs, but it so happens 
 that Mr. Dana, then Assistant Secre- 
 tary of War, was sitting with General 
 Grant when Butler, clad in full uniform, 
 called at headquarters and was admitted. 
 Dana describes Butler as entering the 
 General's presence with a flushed face 
 and a haughty air, holding out the order, 
 relieving him from command in the 
 field, and asking: "General Grant, did 
 you issue this order?" To which Grant 
 in a hesitating manner replied: "No, 
 not in that form." Dana, perceiving at 
 this point that the subject under discus- 
 sion was an embarrassing one, and that 
 the interview was likely to be unpleas- 
 ant, if not stormy, at once took his 
 leave, but the impression made upon his 
 mind by what he saw while present was 
 that Butler had in some measure "cowed" 
 his commanding officer. What further 
 took place neither General Grant nor 
 Mr. Dana has ever said. Butler's Book, 
 however, contains what purports to be 
 a full account of the interview, but it is 
 to be observed that it signally fails to 
 recite any circumstance of an overbear- 
 ing nature. It is abundantly evident, 
 
114 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 however, from the history of the times 
 and from contemporaneous documents 
 published in the Records, that neither 
 the working arrangements by which 
 Butler commanded an army from his 
 headquarters at Fortress Monroe or in 
 the field while the major part of it, under 
 the command of Smith, was co-operating 
 with the Army of the Potomac, nor his 
 relations with either his superiors or sub- 
 ordinates, were at all satisfactory. In 
 the nature of the case, they could not be. 
 Butler was a lawyer and politician accus- 
 tomed to browbeat where he could not 
 persuade. He and Smith while starting 
 out as friends, early came to distrust 
 each other. Smith, who was as before 
 stated on intimate terms at general head- 
 quarters, made his views fully known 
 from time to time, and especially in a 
 frank and manly letter of July 2, 1884, 
 to both Rawlins and Grant, and from 
 the correspondence of the latter with 
 Halleck, it is certain that both sympa- 
 thized with Smith at first. It was 
 evidently at Grant's request to Halleck, 
 then acting as chief of staff and military 
 adviser at Washington, that Smith was 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT I I 5 
 
 assigned to the Eighteenth Corps, and at 
 Grant's request that he was relieved from 
 it, without explanation. The undisputed 
 fact is that the countermanding order was 
 issued after a personal interview between 
 Grant and Butler, the details of which 
 are only partly known, and that no fur- 
 ther explanation consistent with the con- 
 tinuance of friendly relations between 
 Grant and Smith has ever been given. 
 The inference to be drawn from the 
 records, the correspondence, the conver- 
 sations and the writings of all the parties 
 thereto, is that the representations of 
 Butler, and especially his comments upon 
 Smith's criticism of the battles and man- 
 agement of the campaign, were the prin- 
 cipal factors in convincing Grant that 
 the best way out of the complications 
 was to relieve Smith and restore Butler 
 to full command. This way had been 
 foreseen and suggested by Smith him- 
 self, for he had asked more than once 
 to be relieved from further service in the 
 field on account of ill health, which made 
 it impossible for him to undergo exposure 
 to the hot sun, but his request had been 
 denied, doubtless from a sincere desire 
 
lib GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 on Grant's part to have the advantages 
 of his services in the solution of the 
 complicated problem which yet con- 
 fronted the army. Had this request 
 been granted when made, or had it been 
 granted afterwards, and placed on the 
 the ground of a personal favor for the 
 benefit of his health, which might well 
 have been done, General Smith has 
 frankly admitted that he would have 
 had no shadow of excuse for anything 
 but thanks. But when he was relieved 
 without notice or any assignment of 
 cause, as he was starting on sick leave, 
 and the order was concealed from him 
 till he had returned, a suspicion at once 
 arose in his mind as to the motives which 
 inspired it, and the suspicion was claimed 
 by him as a sufficient justification for 
 telling the world all he knew in regard 
 to those who were responsible for the 
 action of which he complains. His 
 military criticism, however indiscreet, had 
 always been direct and manly. Its sound- 
 ness had been approved by some of the 
 best officers in the service, including 
 Grant himself, but it must be observed 
 that the latter in his final report of the 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT I I 7 
 
 campaign, takes pains to make the point, 
 evidently to forestall criticism, that he 
 held himself responsible for only the 
 general plans of the campaigns and oper- 
 ations, and that in accordance with an 
 invariable habit, he left the details and 
 the actual conduct of the battles to his 
 subordinate commanders. The wisdom 
 of this arrangement is not here in ques- 
 tion, though much might be said against 
 it. Its effect, if admitted, as a sound 
 rule of action, must be to transfer the 
 responsibility for a bloody and costly 
 campaign to the shoulders of Meade, 
 Humphreys, Burnside, Butler, Sheridan, 
 Hunter, and in a number of cases even 
 to those of corps and division command- 
 ers, instead of leaving it where it more 
 justly belongs, on the shoulders of those 
 who were responsible for the working 
 organization of the army, and for the 
 details of its staff arrangements. 
 
 General Smith's true place in history 
 does not depend solely on these con- 
 siderations, nor on his contributions to 
 the history or criticism of the war. For- 
 tunately for him the military committee 
 of the House of Representatives of the 
 
I I 8 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 Fiftieth Congress on its own motion, long 
 after all these incidents had been closed, 
 investigated his military career, for the 
 purpose of deciding upon his fitness for 
 the retired list, and on April 20, 1888, 
 it submitted to the House of Represen- 
 tatives a highly favorable report, from 
 which the following extract is taken: 
 
 "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 Gen- 
 eral 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. He also devised the 
 plan of operations by which Bragg's 
 army was overthrown and driven back 
 from Missionary Ridge, for which ser- 
 vices he was again appointed and this 
 time confirmed as Major General of 
 Volunteers, also as Brevet Brigadier 
 General, United States Army." 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT II9 
 
 After referring to other incidents of 
 his life, which have been considered 
 more fully in this account of his public 
 services and need not be repeated here, 
 this report added, although General 
 Smith had resigned from the army many 
 years before, that he was " fully entitled 
 at the hands of the government to be 
 retired for a lifetime of hard and con- 
 spicuous service, in which he has dis- 
 played the most incorruptible honesty, 
 the most outspoken patriotism and devo- 
 tion and the highest ability. It has been 
 the good fortune of but few men in any 
 age or in any country to save an army 
 and to direct it to victory, from a 
 subordinate position. Such service in 
 Europe would secure honor and riches. 
 In ours it should certainly result in an 
 assignment to a place on the retired list 
 of the army, with the rank of Major 
 General, and the appropriate pay for 
 the remaining years of his life. The 
 committee therefore unanimously recom- 
 mend the passage of the bill." 
 
 The final action taken in this case, 
 while highly creditable to General Smith, 
 was not as liberal as the House Commit- 
 
120 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 tee thought it ought to be. The Senate 
 Committee, while concurring in the com- 
 mendation of the General, in conformity 
 to its own practice cut his rank on the 
 retired list down to that of Major, which 
 was the actual grade he held in the regu- 
 lar army at the date of his resignation. 
 It was a piece of ungracious and nig- 
 gardly economy, for the services which 
 entitled him to retirement were those of 
 a general officer, and as he was actually 
 promoted from Brigadier General to 
 Major General in recognition thereof, 
 the House of Representatives was clearly 
 right in recommending his retirement 
 with the higher grade. General Smith, 
 who had not in any way asked for 
 this recognition, was strongly inclined 
 to decline it, but on the solicitation of 
 his friends he finally accepted it. 
 
 At the end of the war General Smith, 
 notwithstanding the differences which 
 had arisen between him and his official 
 superiors, received the brevet of Major 
 General for "gallant and meritorious ser- 
 vices in the field during the rebellion." 
 
 After his relief from further service 
 in the field, General Smith remained at 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT 121 
 
 New York, awaiting orders, till Novem- 
 ber 24th, 1864, at which time he was 
 assigned to special duty under the orders 
 of the Secretary of War. This detail 
 was voluntarily tendered and took him 
 to New Orleans, where he was engaged 
 in looking into the military administra- 
 tion of the department, under Butler and 
 his successors, and in reference to which 
 he made several confidential reports 
 which have never been given to the pub- 
 lic. Perceiving that his military career 
 was practically at an end, and that he 
 was not likely to receive satisfactory 
 recognition on the reorganization of the 
 army, he resigned his volunteer commis- 
 sion on the 4th of November, 1865, 
 and took a leave of absence as a Major 
 of Engineers, from December 1 5th, 
 1865, to March 7th, 1867, on which 
 later date his resignation from the army 
 was accepted. He had meanwhile taken 
 employment as President of the Inter- 
 national Ocean Telegraph Company, 
 and had visited Florida, Cuba and Spain 
 for the purpose of obtaining an exclusive 
 concession for a term of years, for laying, 
 maintaining and operating an ocean tele- 
 
122 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 graph cable from Jacksonville to Havana. 
 He was most successful in his negotia- 
 tions, and in the construction and man- 
 agement of his lines, till 1873, when ne 
 and his associates sold out under advan- 
 tageous terms to the Western Union 
 Telegraph Company. For the next 
 two years he resided abroad, mostlv in 
 England, with his family. During this 
 time he visited nearly all the countries 
 of western Europe, where he met and 
 made the acquaintance of many leading 
 men in the highest walks of life. 
 
 In May, 1873, General Smith was 
 appointed one of the police commis- 
 sioners for New York City, which place 
 he filled till December 31st of that vear, 
 when he was appointed president of the 
 board. He held this office till March 
 nth, 1 88 1, during which time he took 
 an important part in elevating and per- 
 fecting the police service. He was, 
 however, too honest and independent 
 to get on harmoniously with the poli- 
 ticians, and after an open breach with a 
 number of them, including the Mayor, 
 he resigned his position and retired to 
 private life. 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT I 23 
 
 While engaged in this service he took 
 an active interest in the presidential 
 campaign. It will be remembered that 
 the closeness of the vote between Mr. 
 Tilden and General Hayes, and the 
 high degree of tension 'between the 
 opposing parties and their managers, 
 filled the country with alarm, in the 
 midst of which General Smith was con- 
 sulted by the friends of Mr. Tilden, 
 with the view of devising measures 
 against the possibility of a subversion of 
 the government by military or arbitrary 
 power, but fortunately the device and 
 action of the Electoral Commission 
 averted all danger of that sort. The 
 timid and vacillating behavior of Mr. 
 Tilden during the emergency and after- 
 wards was, however, a powerful factor in 
 the estrangement of his supporters, and 
 did much to bring about the nomination 
 of General Hancock by the next Dem- 
 ocratic National Convention. General 
 Smith and his friend General Franklin 
 took an active interest in the canvass 
 and convention, and although they were 
 soldiers without political experience, it 
 is believed that their endorsement of 
 
124 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 Hancock and their work in his behalf 
 was one of the most powerful influences 
 in securing his nomination. They had 
 been his life-long friends and his com- 
 rade during the great conflict, and hence 
 felt justified in giving him their most 
 earnest support. 
 
 At the close of the presidential cam- 
 paign, the result of which was necessarily 
 disappointing to General Smith, he was 
 compelled, by unfortunate investments, 
 to look about for an occupation. His 
 friend, General John Newton was then 
 Chief of Engineers and the system of 
 Internal Improvements, which had long 
 been favored by the Republican party, 
 was being carried forward by bountiful 
 appropriations from Congress. Many 
 officers and civil engineers were required 
 for the supervision of the various river 
 and harbor works, and General Smith, 
 having had wide experience, was, by the 
 act of his friend, appointed Government 
 Agent, and placed in charge of the works 
 on the Peninsula between the Delaware 
 and Chesapeake Bays, with his head- 
 quarters at Wilmington, Delaware. On 
 March ist, 1889, he was, in compliance 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT I 25 
 
 with a special Act of Congress, put upon 
 the retired list of the army, with the rank 
 of Major. This at once raised the ques- 
 tion whether he could draw the pay ap- 
 propriate to his retired rank, and at the 
 same time receive pay as a Government 
 Agent. After argument by his friend, 
 the Honorable Anthony Higgins, the 
 United States Senator from Delaware, 
 the case was decided in his favor on the 
 theory that an "agent" was not an officer, 
 within the meaning of the law. The 
 decision in this case was similar to that 
 made in the case of Quartermaster Gen- 
 eral Meigs, who was employed to super- 
 vise the construction of the Pension 
 Office in Washington, after he had been 
 placed on the retired list. Under the 
 decision General Smith continued to per- 
 form the duties and draw the pay of 
 Agent, till 1901, when he voluntarily 
 gave up the appointment and definitively 
 retired from business of every kind. 
 For the last ten years or more he resided 
 in Philadelphia, where he enjoyed the 
 acquaintance and society of his chosen 
 friends to within a few weeks of his 
 death, which occurred on the 28th day 
 
126 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 of February, 1903, four years subse- 
 quent to the death of his wife. 
 
 He retained his wonderful intellectual 
 powers, absolutely unimpaired, to the 
 date of his final illness. With keen wit, 
 sparkling repartee and a mind always on 
 the alert for fresh information and the 
 beauties of literature, he remained a 
 delightful and instructive companion to 
 the end. Firm in the Christian faith 
 and fully satisfied that life had nothing 
 further in store for him worth waiting 
 for, he took his departure into the Silent 
 Land composed and free from regret, 
 like a strong man going to sleep. He 
 left a son and daughter with many friends 
 and hosts of companions scattered 
 throughout the country to mourn his 
 loss. His native State had filled his 
 heart with pride and satisfaction by giving 
 place on the walls of its capital to a 
 bronze effigy and tablet with a laudatory 
 inscription celebrating his virtues and his 
 most distinguished services, and handing 
 down his memory to future generations 
 as one in every way worthy of their 
 respect and admiration. 
 
 I cannot close this sketch without 
 
u 
 
 %. 
 
 THE 
 
 ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF W 
 GRANT, DATED DECEMBER 21,181 
 
 IN THE NATION'S LIFE HE WAS IN i 
 LINCOLN.STANTON AND GRANT, AS! 
 FOR THE MOST IMPOR 
 
 
 OUT OF EAST TE 
 THE POTOMAC^ 
 SECOND PROPOSITI 
 U. SMITH SHOULD BE I 
 THAT ARMY-r^-- -.BOTH THE S 
 AND GEN . HALLECK SAID^ * * 
 WOULD BE THE BEST PER: " 
 THE PRESIDENT THE SECRETAR 
 AGREE WITH YOU IN THINKING , 
 WHOLE MUCH BETTER TO SELECT 
 
 SERIES I VOL. XXXI PACE 457 OFFK 
 • UNION AND CONFEDERATE ARMIES.( WAR OF THE REBELLION 
 
 BRONZE TABLET TO GENERAL WM. F. SMITH 
 IN STATE HOUSE AT MONTPELIER, VERMONT. 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT I 2J 
 
 repeating in part my personal testimony 
 to the strength and elevation of General 
 Smith's character. He was blessed by 
 a singularly clear, orderly and compre- 
 hensive mind, and was most industrious 
 and persistent in its use. Somewhat 
 phlegmatic and deliberate in tempera- 
 ment and manner, he gave the impress- 
 ion occasionally that he was lacking in 
 push and energy, but such was not the 
 case in fact. During his services on the 
 Rio Grande he suffered, as previously 
 related, a malarial attack from which it 
 is now evident he never entirely recov- 
 ered. Under exposure to the summer 
 sun, he was for the rest of his life liable 
 to a recurrence of the symptoms espe- 
 cially those pertaining to the head, and 
 this may have made him more or less 
 irascible at times. Military habits are 
 at best not calculated to develop a mild 
 and patient behavior, nor to beget a 
 spirit of resignation to unjust or arbi- 
 trary 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 
 
128 GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 he possessed a just and even a charita- 
 ble disposition, which made him fair 
 towards his equals and most considerate 
 towards his subordinates. He was, how- 
 ever, above all things, logical, and as a 
 close student of his profession, he in- 
 variably followed the established prin- 
 ciples of the military art to their legiti- 
 mate conclusions. In the presence of 
 great military problems and responsibil- 
 ities such as those with which he had to 
 deal at Chattanooga, he became absorbed 
 and reticent if not austere and had but 
 little to say except to those with whom 
 it was his duty to talk. There the solu- 
 tion was so clearly his own that no one 
 thought of disputing it with him till 
 years afterwards. But in the conduct 
 of operations against Lee, there were so 
 many roads open, so many commanders 
 in the field, and so many plans of oper- 
 ations suggested, so many considerations 
 to be observed that no one man except 
 Grant who was clad with special powers 
 for the emergency, could hope for the 
 honor of directing all movements. That 
 became his exclusive function as soon as 
 he was made Lieutenant General, but 
 
HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT I 29 
 
 unfortunately, as has been shown, he and 
 Smith began drifting apart from the day 
 of their arrival in the East, and long 
 before the great task before them was ac- 
 complished they had by their own pecu- 
 liarities, looking at the problem from 
 different points of view, and aided doubt- 
 less by the misrepresentations and self- 
 ish purposes of others, become hope- 
 lessly out of harmony with each other. 
 This is not the place to pronounce 
 final judgment between them. They 
 knew each other well, and although 
 Grant had said towards the close of their 
 friendship, "General Smith, while a very 
 able officer, is obstinate, and is likely to 
 condemn whatever is not suggested by 
 himself," he had shown an earnest desire 
 that his great talents should be utilized. 
 On the other hand Smith, who was 
 intimately acquainted with both the 
 strength and the weaknesses of Grant's 
 character, had full confidence in the 
 soundness of his judgment, when left 
 free from prejudice and misrepresenta- 
 tion, to act upon a full statement of the 
 facts. Neither had hitherto shown him- 
 self to be particularly sensitive to criti- 
 
I3O GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH 
 
 cism from the other, and both were in 
 the highest degree patriotic and loyal to 
 the cause; They had worked harmoni- 
 ously and with marked success together 
 in the West. Not a shadow had come 
 between them. The case must therefore 
 have been a most complicated one which 
 made it impossible for them to work 
 together in the same manner and to the 
 same end in the East. The severance of 
 their relationship, to whatever influence 
 it may be attributed, is profoundedly to 
 be regretted, not only because it prema- 
 turely ended the military career of Gen- 
 eral Smith, but because it must have in- 
 juriously affected the fortunes of General 
 Grant as well as of the country and the 
 army, at a time when both sorely needed 
 the help of every capable soldier. These 
 results are all the more to be deplored 
 because no one can study the circum- 
 stances connected therewith, without 
 reaching the conclusion that they were 
 brought about by methods which were 
 themselves not above criticism, and 
 which finally resulted in the downfall of 
 their author. 
 
 THE END. 
 
OCT 193? 
 
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