HEROES OF THE GREAT CONFLICT; LIFE AND SERVICES OF WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH, MAJOR GENERAL, UNITED STATES VOLUNTEER IN THE CIVIL WAR

A Sketch by

James Harrison Wilson, major general, U.S.V.

The John M. Rogers Press
Wilmington, Del.

1904

[Illustration]

William Farrar Smith, the subject of this sketch, graduated 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 Conflict, but something more is needed.  They deal but slightly with men’s motives, 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 organization, equipment, armament and supply of the troops, and leave their trials, hardships and extraordinary virtues largely to the imagination.  They are entirely silent as to the qualities and idiosyncrasies of the leaders.  Neither romance nor personal 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 possible chronologically in the order of their importance without the slightest reference to literary effect.  While nothing is more untrustworthy generally than personal 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.

In the list of the most notable men of the day the name of Major General William Farrar Smith must be recorded.  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 officers in the service.  They were in middle life, in the full enjoyment of their powers, and it was the confident opinion of those who knew them best, that they were sure to become