Thomas Kilby Smith (1820–1887)

Massachusetts native Thomas Kilby Smith served as a brigadier general in the Union army during the Civil War. He commanded a brigade during the capture of Fort Hindman at Arkansas Post in 1863 and a division in the Red River Campaign.

Born on September 23, 1820, in Dorchester, Massachusetts, Smith was the son of George Smith and Eliza Bicker Walker Smith. His father was a sailor who served as the captain of merchant ships. The family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1829, where Smith attended school and worked as a surveyor in his late teens. He studied law under Salmon P. Chase in Cincinnati and joined the bar in 1846. Two years later, he married Elizabeth Budd McCullough, and the couple had nine children.

Serving in the administration of President Franklin Pierce in the Post Office, Smith received an appointment as the U.S. marshal near the end of Pierce’s term. For the next four years, he served as the deputy clerk of court for Hamilton County, Ohio.

At the outbreak of war, Smith traveled to Washington DC and witnessed the aftermath of the First Battle of Bull Run. He returned to Ohio and, with the help of Chase and his wife’s uncle, received a commission as a lieutenant colonel in the Fifty-fourth Ohio Infantry. On October 31, 1861, he received a promotion to colonel. The regiment moved to Kentucky in February 1862 and joined a division under the command of Brigadier General William Sherman. The regiment first saw combat on April 6–7, 1862, at the Battle of Shiloh. During the battle, the brigade commander was wounded, and Smith took command of the brigade, leading three regiments in the fight. The brigade lost more than 550 men killed, wounded, or missing.

Returning to regimental command, Smith led his unit in the Siege of Corinth and returned to temporary brigade command at the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou in December 1862. He remained in command as multiple divisions loaded onto boats in early January and moved up the Arkansas River to attack Fort Hindman. He ably commanded the brigade during the assault, and the unit suffered about eighty-five casualties. After the surrender of the garrison, Smith organized the prisoners and the destruction of military property that would not be transported back to Union lines.

Smith continued to command the brigade at the Battle of Champion Hill and during the opening stages of the Vicksburg Campaign, leading it in an assault on Confederate lines in late May with a loss of 201 men. Even with support from Major General Ulysses Grant and Sherman, as well as the enlisted men of the brigade, Smith did not receive a promotion to brigadier general during this period and lost command of his brigade when Brigadier General Joesph Lightburn joined the division. He joined the staff of Grant and served in various roles during the campaign, including observing the Battle of Milliken’s Bend. Smith missed the surrender of Vicksburg as he carried messages down the river to Port Hudson where Major General Nathaniel Banks besieged Confederate forces. Returning to Vicksburg, he led an expedition to Natchez, Mississippi, where he captured cattle and other materials gathered for Confederate troops in the area. His promotion to brigadier general came through, effective August 11, 1863.

His first assignment as a general came as the commander of Union forces at Natchez. In early 1864, Smith led a brigade in the Meridian Expedition followed by command of an ad hoc division during the Red River Campaign. While Union forces in Arkansas marched southward from Little Rock (Pulaski County) and Fort Smith (Sebastian County), Federals under the command of Banks moved up the Red River in Louisiana in an attempt to link the two armies and capture Shreveport, Louisiana, and invade eastern Texas. Smith’s men protected the naval flotilla that accompanied the army, and the command suffered a total of fifty-four casualties during the campaign.

After the campaign, Smith returned to Ohio for several months as he recovered from exhaustion. Smith retook command of his division in January 1865, but subsequent orders sent him to New Orleans, where he took command of the District of South Alabama and Florida, followed by command of the District of Mobile in May.

Receiving a brevet promotion to major general in March 1865, Smith served as consul to Panama from 1866 to 1867. Living in Pennsylvania and New York City, Smith died on December 14, 1887. Elizabeth died in 1899, and both are buried in Torresdale, Pennsylvania. A sculpture of Smith is located on the Vicksburg battlefield.

For additional information:
Bearss, Edwin C. “The Battle of the Post of Arkansas.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 18 (Autumn 1959): 237–279.

Smith, Walter. Life and Letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, Brevet Major-General, United States Volunteers, 1820–1887. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1898.

Warner, Ezra. Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002.

David Sesser
Southeastern Louisiana University