Thomas Kilby Smith | |
---|---|
Born |
Boston, Massachusetts |
September 23, 1820
Died | December 14, 1887 New York City, New York |
(aged 67)
Place of burial | Saint Dominic Church Cemetery, Torresdale, Pennsylvania |
Allegiance |
United States of America Union |
Service/branch |
United States Army Union Army |
Years of service | 1861–1865 |
Rank |
Brigadier General Bvt. Major General |
Commands held |
54th Ohio Infantry 2nd Division, XVII Corps |
Battles/wars | |
Other work | Diplomat, journalist |
Thomas Kilby Smith (September 23, 1820 – December 14, 1887) was a lawyer, soldier, and diplomat from the state of Ohio who served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War and then in the postbellum United States Army. He led a brigade and then a division in the Army of the Tennessee in several of the most significant campaigns of the Western Theater of operations before failing health forced him to a series of desk jobs.
Smith was born in Boston, Massachusetts on September 23, 1820. He was the eldest son of Captain George Smith and Eliza Bicker Walter. Both his paternal and maternal forefathers were active and prominent in the professional life and in the government of New England.
His parents moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, in his early childhood, where he was educated in a military school under Ormsby M. Mitchel, the astronomer, and studied law in the office of Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase. In 1853 he was appointed by President Franklin Pierce as the special agent in the Post Office Department at Washington, D.C., and later United States Marshal for the Southern District of Ohio and deputy clerk of Hamilton County.
Smith entered the Union Army on September 9, 1861, as a lieutenant colonel. Later in the year, he was commissioned as the colonel of the newly raised 54th Ohio Infantry. He organized the regiment at Camp Dennison near Cincinnati in the summer and fall of 1861. In February 1862, Smith and his men were ordered to Paducah, Kentucky, where they joined the division of Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman.