Confederate General William "Extra Billy" Smith: From Virginia's Statehouse to Gettysburg Scapegoat
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Confederate General William "Extra Billy" Smith: From Virginia's Statehouse to Gettysburg Scapegoat
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Overview
Winner of the 2013 Nathan Bedford Forrest History Book Award for Southern History
Nominated for the 2014 Virginia Book Award for Nonfiction
Despite a life full of drama, politics, and adventure, little has been written about William “Extra Billy” Smith—aside from a rather biased account by his brother-in-law back in the nineteenth century. As the oldest and one of the most controversial Confederate generals on the field at Gettysburg, Smith was also one of the most charismatic characters of the Civil War and the antebellum Old South.
Known nationally as “Extra Billy” because of his prewar penchant for finding loopholes in government postal contracts to gain extra money for his stagecoach lines, Smith served as Virginia’s governor during both the war with Mexico and the Civil War; served five terms in the US Congress; and was one of Virginia’s leading spokesmen for slavery and states’ rights. Extra Billy’s extra-long speeches and wry sense of humor were legendary among his peers. A lawyer during the heady Gold Rush days, he made a fortune in California—and, as with his income earned from stagecoaches, quickly lost it.
Despite his advanced age, Smith took to the field and fought well at First Manassas, was wounded at Seven Pines and again at Sharpsburg, and marched with Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania. There, on the first day at Gettysburg, Smith’s frantic messages about a possible Union flanking attack remain a matter of controversy to this day. Did his aging eyes see distant fence-lines that he interpreted as approaching enemy soldiers—mere phantoms of his imagination? Or did his prompt action stave off a looming Confederate disaster?
This biography draws upon a wide array of newspapers, diaries, letters, and other firsthand accounts to paint a portrait of one of the South’s most interesting leaders, complete with original maps and photos.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781611211306 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Savas Beatie |
| Publication date: | 02/20/2019 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 433 |
| Sales rank: | 250,439 |
| File size: | 15 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
"I never objected to the name."
Extra Billy: The Early Years, 1797-1842
A farmer's tree-lined fencing? Or, enemy soldiers readying for an imminent attack? In the shimmering summer sunshine they were hard to distinguish as 65-year-old Confederate Brig. Gen. William Smith peered off in the distance. The long dark line along the road east of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, certainly looked menacing on this humid afternoon of July 1, 1863. White-haired, clean-shaven, and with ramrod straight posture, Smith was the oldest general in Robert E. Lee's vaunted Army of Northern Virginia. He believed the sight confirmed his scouts' persistent reports of masses of Union infantry advancing on the York Road. If true, the Federal movement threatened the Rebels' left flank and could possibly change a certain tactical victory into an abject disaster. He stared again. Yes, they must be Yankees, he decided.
Smith's path to Gettysburg was a long and decidedly mixed journey. The old Virginian boasted a colorful and star-crossed pedigree. The nation knew him as "Extra Billy" for his penchant of using a loophole in government postal contracts to receive extra compensation as a stagecoach line operator in the 1830s. Governor of Virginia during the Mexican War, later a California "49er," and a pro-slavery, five-term U.S. congressman, Smith gained and spent two fortunes, and his 300-acre plantation ranked among the finest in Fauquier County. Seven of his eleven children lay in graves, the most recent mortally wounded thirteen months previously during the battle of Gaines's Mill. Another son almost died from a severe wound in an engagement at Cloyd's Mountain and was now a colonel down in Tennessee. Still another lost an arm in his youth, and one more drowned in a shipwreck near Hawaii.
For more than two years William Smith had officered in the Southern army; he bore the marks from painful injuries in three past battles. His left shoulder incessantly throbbed from a severe wound inflicted at Sharpsburg the previous September and he barely could lift his sword. Few observers challenged his personal bravery or dedication to the Old Dominion. Likewise, few admired his generalship, which proved inconsistent at best. Some laughed at his strange quirk of carrying an old blue umbrella and wearing a beaver top hat into early engagements. An immensely popular campaigner and mesmerizing public speaker, Smith enjoyed widespread support among Virginia's voters, who recently re-elected him to the governorship. This was his last campaign before assuming office in January. His constituents loved him; his soldiers tolerated him. He commanded the second smallest Confederate brigade at Gettysburg; two veteran regiments remained in Virginia after the Second Battle of Winchester in mid-June to guard prisoners and captured supplies.
Now Smith faced a command decision on how best to counter the perceived threat to the east on the York Road. The general ordered his son, Lt. Frederick W. Smith, to gallop into Gettysburg to repeat his warning to his division commander, crusty Maj. Gen. Jubal A. Early, one of those "West P'inters" that he collectively despised. Unknown to Governor-elect Smith, his importunate reports and debatable handling of his veteran brigade may have affected the outcome of the first day's fighting at the battle of Gettysburg and influenced Confederate fortunes the next two days.
To some in the Southern army, including the irascible Early, the terse messages brought annoyance and disbelief. One thing was clear enough — the teetotaler Smith detested any form of intoxicant, so his impassioned reports either stemmed from pain-wracked confusion or hysteria; an honest error in observation and military judgment; or a very real threat that another set of eyes quickly needed to assess. Early sent another general that he fully trusted, John B. Gordon, and his brigade of Georgia infantry to take charge of the situation and bring stability to the flank. Their redeployment to assist Smith denied Early their use in any late afternoon attempt to storm the reinforced Union line on Cemetery Hill south of Gettysburg.
To his many detractors, Smith's frantic notes proved to be inconsistent with later known movements of Union troops and, in reality, stemmed from his uncertainty and lack of formal military training in reconnaissance. Some believed the controversial old man clearly was out of his league at Gettysburg and badly misinterpreted a key tactical situation. That error in turn led to a command decision that negatively affected the outcome of the battle and perhaps even the very future of the Confederacy he so loved. To his supporters, Smith's timely notes finally spurred his skeptical superiors into action. They brought attention to Union cavalry and Twelfth Corps infantry that if left unchecked might have been brought to bear on the Rebels' exposed flank. His persistence saved Lee's army from an unmitigated fiasco, some thought.
The truth may lie somewhere in between.
A Proud Heritage
William Smith was born on September 6, 1797, on a plantation owned by his father Col. Caleb Smith in rural King George County, Virginia. Most accounts locate the site as the "Marengo" farm along the Potomac River, although some evidence suggests a different estate (later known as "Office Hall") a few miles inland to the southeast.
The Smiths traced their ancestry to a 16th-century forbearer named Doniphan, a Spanish knight who commanded royal troops in several wars against the Moors. After failing to obey King Philip II's orders to destroy several captured Moorish towns and their inhabitants, he fell into disfavor and fled to Scotland. During the English Civil Wars of the 1640s his descendant Alexander Doniphan remained fiercely loyal to King Charles I, who the Parliamentarians executed in 1649. After the restoration of the monarchy eleven years later, Charles II granted him vast land tracts. However, the Protestant Doniphan soon immigrated to Jamestown in the Colony of Virginia to seek religious freedom. Some time before 1662, he married an heiress, Margaret, a daughter of wealthy Scotsman George Mott, and came into possession of 18,000 acres in the Northern Neck region of coastal Virginia.
Alexander's namesake son later married Mary Waugh, a union through which both of Extra Billy Smith's parents later traced their roots. In 1773 their daughter Elizabeth married Capt. William Smith, a son of Joseph and Kitty Smith and owner of the "Mount Eccentric" estate in rural Fauquier County. William's brother, Thomas, a militia officer in the American Revolution, and his wife Elizabeth Keith sired Caleb, who gained success as an attorney. Caleb wielded "an extraordinary influence over the people of his county" and served several terms in the Virginia legislature. In December 1794 he married his 19-year-old cousin Mary Waugh Smith, William and Elizabeth Doniphan Smith's daughter. Caleb and Mary's first child, Eliza, was born in September 1795, but she died in August 1797. Three weeks later Mary delivered a son she named after her younger brother, William Rowley Smith.
As a boy, William Smith received early educational instruction on his father's plantation. For several years, he often walked six miles to attend classes at a field school. At an early age he was "distinguished for zeal and mental vigor in the prosecution of his studies." He enjoyed the privileged lifestyle of Virginia's high society, an agrarian way of life heavily dependent upon the produce of the land. Wealthier plantation owners such as Col. Caleb Smith relied extensively on slave labor or hired hands to harvest their crops and tend the livestock and fowls. However, most Virginians owned no slaves and instead farmed their own plots. Trade and barter abounded, but rarely extended beyond the immediate region. Religion flourished, and often multiple church spires overlooked the many small towns. Little had changed in the decade since the Revolution, with only a few significant cities scattered along the Mid-Atlantic seaboard and a scarcity of heavy industry. Formal education proved virtually impossible for most Southerners, unless one enjoyed the financial means to send his children away for private schooling. The colonel was in exactly that enviable position.
In 1807, Smith dispatched the 10-year-old, freckle-faced William to live for a short time with an intimate friend in Fredericksburg, Judge John Williams Green and his wife Mary. He sought Green's opinion as to the mental capacity of his eldest son and his ability to receive and retain a classical, but expensive, education. Young William received a "very favorable" report. Following the death of his mother in mid-September 1811, William left home at the age of thirteen for Plainfield, Connecticut, to study English and the classics at noted educator Jabez Huntington's private school. There, Smith flourished under the master teacher's firm hand and his academic future seemed bright. However, his time at the prestigious Plainfield Academy proved short-lived, as unexpected changes soon led him to a different path.
On June 18, 1812, during Smith's second year at Plainfield, Congress declared war on Britain. An intense spirit of patriotism soon swept across the young country. The Revolutionary War had ended less than two decades before, and many Americans still itched for another fight with Britain. For several years the British engaged in a multi-national conflict with Emperor Napoleon's French armies, and Parliament feared U.S. intervention on the French side. Escalating trade tension and impressments of American seamen acerbated the deteriorating relationship.
William, caught up in the nationalistic fervor, "earnestly besought" his influential father's assistance in obtaining a midshipman's warrant to go fight against the Royal Navy. Emotions ran high, particularly in New England, so Caleb Smith recalled his son from Plainfield in December and sent him home in an attempt to cool his ardor. Not wanting William to join the navy and deeming him too young for the army, Colonel Smith "determined to give his son the best education the country could then afford." He enrolled him in "Wingfield," Thomas Nelson's celebrated English and Classical School in Hanover County, Virginia. Nelson enjoyed a reputation as a highly successful teacher whose pupils often distinguished themselves later in the fields of science and law. William Smith completed his education at a private school at his father's mansion.
After his father died in November 1814, the 17-year-old Smith returned to Judge John Green's house in Fredericksburg to study law in the firm of Green & Williams. He subsequently continued his training under Thomas L. Moore, a lawyer with a large practice in Warrenton. Smith, despite his youth, had "practical charge" of all of the office work. He later completed his studies in the prestigious Baltimore, Maryland, law office of former general William H. Winder.
In the summer of 1818, Judge Green, Judge Hugh Holmes, and prominent attorney Robert White administered the bar examination to the 20-year-old Smith. In August he established his practice in Culpeper County in the undulating Piedmont region of Northern Virginia. Within weeks, illness forced Smith to rest until late October, when he began spending the fourth Monday of each month in the Fauquier County courthouse northeast of Culpeper. "Endowed with a robust frame and vigorous constitution," Smith's energy and passion soon attracted a sizable clientele in both counties. He later wrote, "Being a man of strong convictions and fearless inmaintaining them, I soon took part in politics." It provided a natural fit for a young, aggressive lawyer seeking name recognition. He joined the Democratic Party and "pledged to a strict construction of party doctrines, frugality in public expenditures, and honesty in the public servant." It was his "political trinity, from which he never swerved to the hour of his death."
Smith endorsed limiting the power of national government and expanding the rights of individual states: "I could not see how our systems of State and Federal Governments could be fairly misconstrued. The line of separation between them was plain, manifest, intended, provided for." He strictly and narrowly interpreted the Constitution, and believed "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The aspiring attorney became legal guardian to younger siblings Catherine and James Madison Smith. He courted teenaged Miss Elizabeth Hansbrough Bell, one of the area's most desirable and socially gifted young women. She was the eldest daughter of the late James M. and Amelia Bell of the nearby "Bell Parke" plantation. Captain Bell, a wealthy and prominent Culpeper citizen, and his wife long were renowned for their Virginia hospitality. Smith's subsequent marriage to Elizabeth in 1821 united two of the region's oldest families. A year later on November 5 she gave birth to a son they named William Henry, and in 1824 a second son, James Caleb, was born. The families further conjoined when Elizabeth's brother, William Bell, married Smith's younger sister Martha.
At the time, Culpeper was "closely divided in politics, with the speaking talent, as a rule, in the ranks of the opposition party" (the Federalists). Smith's unusual oratory skills and his youthful exuberance gained the attention of local Democratic leaders. They used him as a stump-speaker in a dozen local campaigns. In the hotly contested four-way presidential election of 1824, Smith supported Georgian William H. Crawford, the incumbent Secretary of the Treasury. He "slightly preferred" Crawford to military hero and Senator Andrew Jackson of Tennessee. Smith strongly opposed the other two candidates, Speaker of the House Henry Clay of Kentucky and U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts. Although Crawford easily carried Virginia, Jackson enjoyed a national plurality in the popular and electoral votes but failed to reach the required 131 minimum electoral tally. To Smith's dismay, Adams surprisingly won a contingent run-off election in the House of Representatives when he gained Clay's support in what some decried as a "corrupt bargain." Adams subsequently named the Virginia-born Clay as Secretary of State, a powerful position that usually led to the White House in the next election.
Smith's political exposure and wider recognition helped him expand his legal practice, which soon generated significant income. In 1825 he erected a large Greek Revival mansion with imposing 20-foot white columns. His sprawling property encompassed a full square block at N. Main and W. Spencer streets in downtown Culpeper. His huge brick stable and its large paddocks ranked among the finest such facilities in the county.
"Extra Billy"
Culpeper was nestled in the Piedmont highlands, far from Virginia's bustling social and political centers. The region, blessed with good soil and a temperate climate, facilitated agriculture and light industry. Many of Smith's clients realized the need for speedier communication and convenient routes to transport their goods to larger markets such as Richmond and Norfolk, where Tidewater-area slave owners controlled much of the commerce because of close access and availability. The farmers of the Northern Neck, few of whom owned slaves, wanted the ability to compete for the city dwellers' lucrative business. Smith seized an opportunity to improve his own fortunes while accommodating the citizens. At the time, before the growth of railroads, stagecoaches provided the main public land transportation. All coach lines in the region ran east and west from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the coast. He envisioned intersecting them with a new service traveling north and south.
In 1827, the year his daughter Mary Amelia was born, the 29-year-old Smith contracted with the Federal government to establish the "Accommodation Mail Line," a series of periodic postal and passenger stagecoaches from Washington, D.C., to Culpeper. Within a year, while he stumped the region for Andrew Jackson's presidential campaign, Smith extended the line to Charlottesville. He then expanded to Lynchburg, with twice-a-week stops in Fairfax, Warrenton, Culpeper, Orange Court House, and Amherst Court House. The distance the coaches traveled to deliver the mail determined his remuneration. Smith frequently drove a stagecoach and at times he would stop and allow admiring local boys to ride in the "boot" for short distances. One of the lads was his future brother-in-law, John W. Bell.
Smith's life flourished. In 1829 he and Elizabeth celebrated the birth of their fourth child, Austin E., and his profitable business opened the region to commercial trade with larger towns and connected residents with the national mail service. In 1830, the Post Office Department renewed Smith's contract from Washington City to Lynchburg (three times a week, 200 miles, four-horse post coaches) for $6,000 a year. Smith was not the low bidder, but he won the route nonetheless. The department noted in its annual report to the U.S. Senate, "W. Hart bid $4,977 per annum. Hart was not recommended; Smith was the former contractor, very highly approved, and had very recently, by his own enterprise, established a first rate line of four-horse post coaches on the whole route; the preference was, therefore, given to him." Smith also won a $1,600 contract to run two-horse stages twice a week from Lynchburg to Danville because he could make the 81-mile route in less time than his regional competitor, John S. Foster.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Confederate General William "Extra Billy" Smith"
by .
Copyright © 2013 Scott L. Mingus Sr..
Excerpted by permission of Savas Beatie LLC.
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Table of Contents
Foreword,
Introduction,
Chapter 1 "I never objected to the name." Extra Billy: The Early Years, 1797-1842,
Chapter 2 "The most trying moment of my troubles ..." The Transition Years, 1843-1852,
Chapter 3 "I believe in my soul slavery is neither a moral, social or political evil." The Long Road to Secession, 1853-1860,
Chapter 4 "My military prospects were anything but flattering." Colonel Smith of the Confederacy, 1861-1862,
Chapter 5 "Now here's my brigade — I wish you knew them as I do." General Smith and the Chancellorsville and Gettysburg Campaigns, 1863,
Chapter 6 "We cannot believe that our great God will allow such a just cause as ours to be lost." Governor Smith Returns to Richmond, 1863-1865,
Chapter 7 "A stormy and, I hope, not altogether a useless life." The Sunset Years, 1865-1887,
Epilogue,
Appendix "The Valiant but Unmilitary Extra Billy Smith." Smith's Controversial Generalship at Gettysburg,
Bibliography,
Index,
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