Charles Ferguson Smith

For other people with the same name, see Charles Smith (disambiguation).

Charles Ferguson Smith
Born	(1807-04-24)April 24, 1807 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	April 25, 1862(1862-04-25) (aged 55) Savannah, Tennessee, U.S.
Place of burial	Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Allegiance	United States of America Union
Service/branch	United States Army Union Army
Years of service	1825–1862
Rank	Major General
Commands	Department of Utah 3rd Regular Infantry 2nd Division, AotT Army of the Tennessee
Battles/wars	Mexican–American War Battle of Palo Alto Battle of Resaca de la Palma Battle of Monterrey Battle of Churubusco Utah War American Civil War Battle of Fort Donelson
Other work	Commandant of Cadets
Signature

Charles Ferguson Smith (April 24, 1807 – April 25, 1862) was an American military officer who served in the United States Army during the Mexican–American War (1846-1848), and a decade later in the subsequent Utah War; (1857-1858) against the Mormon settlers in the newly established weatern Federal Utah Territory. Three years later with the outbreak of Civil War back East, he was a U.S. Army / Union Army major general , serving in the early years of the American Civil War (1861-1865), in the Western theater.

He had attended and graduated from the United States Military Academy on the Hudson River at West Point, New York in 1825, and after commissioning as a second lieutenant officer in the U.S. Army, served as an instructor on the faculty at the academy beginning four years later in 1829, and later returned to West Point as Commandant of Cadets from 1838 to 1843. During the American Civil War, he served in the federal Army of the Tennessee under commanding Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885), who had been a student of his at the military academy. Smith was instrumental in Grant's victory at the siege and Battle of Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River near the Kentucky, - Tennessee border but had unfortunately died in April 1862 due to infection of a non-combat leg injury and subsequent attack of dysentery.

Early life and education

Smith was born on April 24, 1807, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Samuel B. Smith and Margaret Ferguson. His paternal grandfather was the prominent Presbyterian church minister John Blair Smith (1756-1799). He had attended and graduated from the United States Military Academy on the Hudson Riveri at West Point, New York in 1825, and commissioned as a second lieutenant officer in the United States Army.

Career

He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 2nd U.S. Artillery and served at Fort Delaware on Peace Patch Island in the Delaware River / upper Delaware Bay, an earlier outmoded brick fortifications protecting Wilmington and Philadelphia further upstream for two years and then assigned to the South at the Augusta Arsenal in Augusta, Georgia from 1827 to 1829. He returned to the military academy in 1829 and served on the faculty as an instructor of tactics under Ethan A. Hitchcock. He was appointed Commandant of Cadets (second in authority to the academy superintendent) and promoted as a first lieutenant, and continued serving in that position for five years from 1838 to 1843.

Three years later as an artillery battalion commander, he distinguished himself in the Mexican–American War (1846-1848), served under both famous Army generals of that war and era of Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott at the Battle of Palo Alto, the Battle of Resaca de la Palma, the Battle of Monterrey, and the Battle of Churubusco, outside on the heights above the Mexican capital of Mexico City. He received brevet promotions from major through colonel for his service in these battles and ended the war as a lieutenant colonel in the Regular Army of the United States. After the enemy surrender, in Mexico City, he was in charge of the police guard from the end of the war until the end of 1848. He was an original member of the Aztec Club of 1847.

Returning home to the U.S,, he was assigned to command the Red River Expedition (1856) up the Red River of the North from the Mississippi River into the new Minnesota Territory (future State of Minnesota) in 1856–1857, and served under highly regarded American army officer (and future Confederate States Army General) Albert Sidney Johnston in Utah (1857–1860), commanding the Army's Department of Utah in the new western federal Utah Territory, himself from 1860 to 1861.

American Civil War

After the outbreak of the war at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor ofCharleston, South Carolina, now Lt. Col. Smith briefly led the Department of Washington (at Fort Washington, Maryland, an old War of 1812. battery on the Potomac River below the national capital) through the first war summer of 1861, then he served on recruiting duty in New York City. On August 31, 1861, he was commissioned a brigadier general of volunteers and on September 9, 1861, as colonel of the 3rd Regular U.S. Army Infantry. He was transferred to the Western Theater and given command of the Western District of Kentucky. He served as a division commander in the Department of the Missouri under newly recommissioned Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant, (1822-1885), who had been one of his pupils decades before at West Point. This potentially awkward situation was eased by Smith's loyalty to his young chief.

Smith led his division in the attack on the Confederate right flank at the Battle of Fort Donelson. guarding the Cumberland River route further South into Tennessee and deep in the Confederacy. His units fought until nightfall and pushed back the 30th Tennessee Infantry. His newly trained Yankees held the captured terrain which soon forced the Confederate defenders to surrender. When the Southern forces sent a request to discuss terms of surrender, General Smith was quoted as saying "no terms to the damn rebels", advice that Grant took to heart but softened to "No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted", which made him known throughout the Northern newspapers famously as U.S. "Unconditional Surrender" Grant.

When theater commander Major General Henry Halleck (1815-1872), became distrustful and perhaps envious of Grant, he briefly relieved him of field command of the Army's expedition up the parallel Tennessee River further south toward Corinth, Mississippi, and gave that responsibility to Smith. However, Halleck soon restored Grant to field command (intervention by 16th President Abraham Lincoln may have been a factor). Smith suffered a serious leg injury while jumping into a rowboat that forced him to miss the subsequent frightful bloody Battle of Shiloh (April 6-7, 1862), where his experience was sorely missed.

Charles Ferguson Smith's gravesite monument ombstone in Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia

Smith died on April 25, 1862, at Savannah, Tennessee, from infection of the leg injury and subsequent dysentery. His body was shipped home to be buried and was interred in historic Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.

The untimely death of Gen. Smith forced Grant to partner with General. William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891), and build a famous partnership / alliance with him that would eventually win the war.

Personal life

Smith married Francis Mactier on March 24, 1840.

Legacy

Three forts were named in his honor. The first Fort C. F. Smith was built in 1863 as part of the perimeter defenses of the national/ federal capital Washington, D.C. during the American Civil War. It lay south of the Potomac River in Arlington County, Virginia, near Alexandria. During the war, it was said that the city of Washington was the most heavily fortified city in the world. The second Fort C.F. Smith was also part of the Civil War defenses of Bowling Green, Kentucky. The third Fort C. F. Smith was built in 1866 at the Bighorn River crossing of the Bozeman Trail in the southern edge of the Montana Territory.(future State of Montana) and was built in violation of an earlier Treaty of Fort Laramie (1851) and despite the natives' protests and demands, caused numerous attacks during the Red Cloud's War. with the Lakota Sioux Indians. It was constructed of adobe walls and structures. Two years later it was evacuated, abandoned and burned in 1868 after negotiations and agreement in a second Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868). It is now grassy pasture surrounded by rolling hills, located on the Crow Indian Reservation, near the small town of Fort Smith, Montana, with remaining earthen mounds of foundations after a century and a half, marked by a stone monument from the 1930s in the center of the former parade ground, and a descriptive interpretive historical plaque. It was placed in 1975 on the National Register of Historic Places (maintained by the National Park Service of the United States Department of the Interior)

Dates of rank

• Cadet, United States Military Academy - 1 July 1820
• 2nd Lieutenant, 2nd Artillery - 1 July 1825
• 1st Lieutenant, 2nd Artillery - 30 May 1832
• Captain, 2nd Artillery - 7 July 1838
• Brevet Major - 9 May 1846
• Brevet Lieutenant Colonel - 23 September 1846
• Brevet Colonel - 20 August 1847
• Major, 1st Artillery - 25 November 1854
• Lieutenant Colonel, 10th Infantry - 3 March 1855
• Colonel, 3rd Infantry - 9 September 1861
• Brigadier General, Volunteers - 31 August 1861
• Major General, Volunteers - 21 March 1862
• Died - 25 April 1862

See also

• List of American Civil War generals (Union)

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

• Brinton, John H. (1914). Personal Memoirs of John H. Brinton, Major and Surgeon U.S.V. 1861-1865. The Neale Publishing Company.
• Gott, Kendall D. (2003). Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry–Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862. Stackpole Books. ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
• Mesch, Allen H. (2003). Teacher of Civil War Generals - Major General Charles Ferguson Smith, Soldier and West Point Commandant. McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7864-9834-5.
• Nevin, David (1983), The Road to Shiloh: Early Battles in the West, Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, ISBN 0-8094-4716-9
• Smith, Jean Edward (2001), Grant, New York: Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0-684-84927-5

Attribution

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Smith, Charles Ferguson". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 259.

Further reading

• Cunningham, O. Edward (2007), Joiner, Gary; Smith, Timothy (eds.), Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862, New York: Savas Beatie, ISBN 978-1-932714-27-2
• Eicher, John H.; Eicher, David J. (2001), Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3
• Robertson, James I. Jr. (February 1986), Civil War Times: 25 {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

External links

• Minnesota Historical Society account of the Red River expedition