Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 5).djvu/611

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SMITH
SMITH

on mutinous soldiers, but was reinstated in 1832. lie became 1st lieutenant in is:!:!. rjptain in is:;s, and during the war with Mexico was engaged in numerous battles, including Molinodel Key, where he was mortally wounded in leading the light in- fantry battalion under his command in an assault on one of the enemy's batteries. Another son, Edmund Kirby, soldier, b. in St. Augustine. Fla., lt> May. 1824: d. in Sewanee. Tenn., 28 March, 1893. was graduated at the U. S. military academy, and entered the infantry. In the war with Mexico he was twice brevetted, for gallantry at Cerro Gordo and Contreras. He was assistant professor of mathematics at West Point in 1849-'52, be- came captain in the 3d cavalry in 1855, served on the frontier, and was wounded, 13 May, 1859, in an engagement with Comanche Indians near old Fort At- chison.Tex. In 1861 he was thanked by the Texas legis- lature for his ser- vices against the Indians. He was promoted major in January, 1861, but resigned on 6 April, on the secession of Florida, and was appointed lieuten- ant-colonel in the corps of cavalry of the Confederate ar-

my. He became

brigadier-general, 17 June, 1861, major-general, 11 Oct., 1861. lieutenant-general, 9 Oct., 1862, and fsneral, 19 Feb.. 1864. At the battle of Bull un, 21 July, 1861, he was severely wounded in the beginning of the engagement. In 1862 he was placed in command of the Department of East Tennessee, Kentucky, North Georgia, and Western North Carolina. He led the advance of Gen. Brax- ton Bragg's army in the Kentucky campaign, and defeated the National forces under Gen. William Nelson at Richmond, Ky., 30 Aug.. 1862. In February. 1863, he was assigned to the command of the Trans-Mississippi department, including Texas, Louisiana. Arkansas, and Indian territory, and was ordered to organize a government, which he did. He made his communications with Rich- mond by running the blockade at Galveston, Tex., and Wilmington, N. C., sent large quantities of cut ti >n to Confederate agents abroad, and. introduc- ing machinery from Europe, established factories and furnaces, opened mines, made powder and cast- ings, and had made the district self-supporting when the war closed, at which time his forces were the last to surrender. In 1864 he opposed and defeated Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks in his Red river cam- paign. Gen. Smith was president of the Atlantic and Pacific telegraph company in 1866-'8, and chancellor of the University of Nashville in 1870-'o, and was professor of mathematics in the Univer- sity of the South, Sewanee, for eighteen years. Kphraim Kirby's son, Joseph Lee Kirby, sol- dier, b. in New York city in 1836 ; d. at Corinth Miss.. 12 Oct., 1862, was graduated at the U. S. military academy in 1857, served as assistant top- ographical engineer in the office of the Missis- sippi delta survey in Washington, D. C., in 1857-'8, on the Utah expedition, the survey of the northern lakes in 1859-'61, and then became 1st lieutenant of topographical engineers. During the civil war he served on Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks's staff in July and August, 1861, received the brevet of cap- tain, U. S. army, in the latter month "for gallant and meritorious service in the Slienandoah vallrv, Va.," became colonel of the 43d Ohio volunteers in September, and was in command of a brigade of the Army of the Mississippi in the capture ol NVv Madrid, Mo., in March, 1862. He was brevetted major, U. S. army, for the capture of Island No. 10, 7 April, 1862, served on the expedition to Fort Pillow, fought at the siege of Corinth in May ( that year, and was brevetted lieutenant-colonel in the U. S. army for repelling a Confederate sortie from that city. He was in command of a regiment in operations in northern Mississippi in September and October, was engaged at the battle of luka, and mortally wounded at Corinth, 4 Oct., while charging " front forward " to repel a desperate attack on Battery Robinett. For this service he was brevetted colonel in the regular army, his com- mission dating 4 Oct., 1862.


SMITH, Joseph Mather, physician, b. in New Rochelle, Westchester co., N. Y." 14 March, 1789 : d. in New York city, 22 April, 1866. His father, Dr. Matson Smith, was a well-known physician in Westchester county, N. Y.. and his mother was a descendant of the Mather family of Massachusetts. Joseph was educated in the academy of his native town, attended medical lectures at Columbia in 1809-'10, was licensed to practise in 1811, and in 1815 was graduated at the New York college of physicians and surgeons. He then settled in prac- tice in that city, and about that time was a founder of the Medico-physiological society, and edited the first volume of its transactions, to which he con- tributed a paper entitled the " Efficacy of Emetics in Spasmodic Diseases " (1817), which won him reputation. He was physician to the New York state prison in 1820-'4, became in 1821 a fellow of the Isew York college of physicians and surgeons, in which he was appointed professor of the theory and practice of physic in 1826, held office for more than thirty years, and in 1855 was transferred to the chair of materia medica. which he held until his death. He became an editor of the New York " Medical and Physiological Journal " in 1828. a visiting physician to the New York hospital in ]N'J!i, president of the Academy of medicine in 1854, vice-president of the National quarantine and sani- tary convention in 1859, and president of the Citizens' association of New York on the organiza- tion of the council of hygiene in 1864. During the cholera epidemic of 1849 he was one of the medical council of the sanitary committee of New York city, and performed arduous and excessive labors throughout the pestilence. He contributed largely to professional literature. His publications include " Elements of the Etiology and Philosophy of Epidemics," of which an eminent English authority said : " It is fifty years in advance of the medical literature of the' day on that subject " (New York, 1824) ; " Discussion on Cholera Morbus " (1831) : "Public Duties of Medical Men" (1846); "Influence of Diseases on Intellectual and Moral Powers " 1848); " Report on Public Hygiene " (1850) ; " Illustrations of Medical Phenomena in Military Life " (1850) ; " Puerperal Fever " (1857) ; " Therapeutics of Albuminuria" (1862); and several addresses ;hat were subsequently published, and include that on the " Epidemic Cholera of Asia and Europe" 1831), and an admirable "Report on the Medical Topography and Epidemics of the State of New York," delivered before the American medical association. In the meteorological portions of this