What If Charles Ferguson Smith... Took Command...

5fish

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2019
Messages
10,622
Reaction score
4,544
General Charles Ferguson Smith was a early mentor and competitor to General Grant. He was full time army with more experience than Grant had or most anyone at the time. You know Grant lost his command to General Smith but was reinstated within a week but many believe because General Smith had injured himself jumping into a rowboat. It seems Grant and Smith had a good relationship...

What if Smith had kept command while the army was in camp at Shiloh?

What if Smith was given command after Shiloh as Grant became the scapegoat for the battle instead of Lew Wallace?

There are some who say if Smith had been as part of the army he would not have been surprised... wishful thinking...

If Smith had been in command of the army at or after Shiloh would the war in the west been different?

In some ways he is the Unions Albert Sidney Johnston...
 

5fish

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2019
Messages
10,622
Reaction score
4,544
1631022817318.png

summary...

From West Point to Fort Donelson, General Charles Ferguson Smith was a soldier's soldier. He served at the U.S. Military Academy from 1829 to 1842 as Instructor of Tactics, Adjutant to the Superintendent and Commandant of Cadets. During his 42-year career he was a teacher, mentor and role model for many cadets who became prominent Civil War generals, and he was admired by such former students as Grant, Halleck, Longstreet and Sherman. Smith set an example for junior officers in the Mexican War, leading his light battalion to victories and earning three field promotions. He served with Albert Sidney Johnston and other future Confederate officers in the Mormon War. He mentored Grant while serving with him during the Civil War, and helped turn the tide at Fort Donelson, which led to Grant's rise to fame. He attained the rank of major general, while refusing political favors and ignoring the press. Drawing on never before published letters and journals, this long overdue biography reveals Smith as a faithful officer, excellent disciplinarian, able commander and modest gentleman.
 

5fish

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2019
Messages
10,622
Reaction score
4,544
Here is this...


snip...

None of this bothered the “Old Man” as Smith was affectionately called. He was openly proud of Grant and had no hesitation serving under him. In the February, 1862, campaign for Fort Donelson, Tennessee, Smith commanded one of Grant’s three divisions. He personally led a charge against the Confederate flank.

Smith saw his inexperienced men hesitate under fire. The “Old Man” exploded. His voice could be heard over the battle noise. What he essentially said was, “I see skulkers. I’ll have none here. You volunteered to be killed for love of country and now you can be. Follow me.” A few choice words have been eliminated from Smith’s original statement.

Smith led his men up a wooded slope and straight into the Confederate works. One soldier wrote, “that by Smith’s presence and heroic conduct he led the green men to do things that no other man could have done.” That assault doomed Fort Donelson. It also gave a Union General the nickname of “Unconditional Surrender” Grant.

Promotion to Major-General quickly came to Smith. And because Union authorities believed that Smith, not Grant, was responsible for the Donelson success Smith was ordered to replace Grant as commander of Union forces on the Tennessee River line.

Suddenly Charles Smith was dead. One day in jumping into a rowboat he scraped his leg on a piece of rusty metal. Tetanus spread unimpeded. On April 25, 1862 the “Old Man” died at Savannah, Tennessee in the riverside home Grant was using as headquarters.

Smith was the last major casualty of the Shiloh campaign. His body was taken home to Philadelphia for burial. A genuinely saddened Grant wrote Mrs. Smith, “when an entire nation condoles with you in your bereavement no one can do so with more heart-felt grief than myself”. General William T. Sherman left no doubt as to how he felt about the “Old Man”. Sherman declared that neither Grant nor he would ever have been heard of had it not been for Charles F. Smith’s untimely death in the second spring of the Civil War.
 

5fish

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2019
Messages
10,622
Reaction score
4,544
Here is this,,, Ft Donelson...


Seizing an opportunity, Grant orders McClernand and Brig. Gen. Lew Wallace to retake their lost ground and then rides to the Union left to order an attack upon the Confederate works opposite Brig. Gen. Charles F. Smith’s division. Grant reasons, correctly, that the Confederate right must be greatly reduced in strength given the heavy assault from the Confederate left. Smith’s division surges forward and overwhelms the lone Confederate regiment occupying the rifle pits in advance of the Confederate line. Smith’s division captures large stretches of the earthworks before dark

Here is this...

https://www.thoughtco.com/battle-of-fort-donelson-2360911

Taking advantage of the Confederate indecisiveness, Grant ordered Smith to attack the left, while Wallace moved forward on the right. Storming forward, Smith's men succeeded in gaining a foothold in the Confederate lines while Wallace reclaimed much of the ground lost in the morning. The fighting ended at nightfall and Grant planned to resume the attack in the morning. That night, believing the situation hopeless, Floyd and Pillow turned command over to Buckner and departed the fort by water. They were followed by Forrest and 700 of his men, who waded through the shallows to avoid Union troops.
 

5fish

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2019
Messages
10,622
Reaction score
4,544
Here a crazy point...


Smith's Attack On February 15 Grant correctly concluded that for the Confederates to hit so hard on the right, they must have weakened their line somewhere else. Seizing the initiative, he told General Smith to "take Fort Donelson." Smith had his troops remove the firing caps from their guns (so the men would not be tempted to stop and fire, risking greater casualties) and fix bayonets. With the Second Iowa Infantry spearheading the attack, Smith led the assault against the Confederate lines on this ridge. Smith's division captured and controlled the earthworks here during the night. Before the attack could be renewed the next morning, Grant and Buckner were already discussing terms for surrender.
 

5fish

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2019
Messages
10,622
Reaction score
4,544
It was a recon report by Smith that allowed Grant to take Ft Henry... This article goes into the lengths Halleck went to end Grants career in the early days of the war... later tries as well...


snip...

Halleck changed his mind after Grant wired him news of a reconnaissance up Tennessee by Brig. Gen. C.F. Smith. Now under Grant’s command, Smith was an old Regular Army man whom Halleck respected. Smith found that Fort Henry was ripe for the taking. It had been built on low ground and was in constant danger of being inundated by the Tennessee River. On January 18, 1862, Grant wired Halleck for permission to mount an expedition to take the fort. Halleck granted the request

snip... is this back stabbing Grant by Smith... or just a pawn...

The Official Records contain Halleck’s correspondence in the weeks after Henry and Donelson. Halleck’s wires to and from Washington demonstrate that the general schemed to have Grant cashiered, shelved or demoted. The campaign began with a slight to Grant in Halleck’s wire of February 19, naming Commodore Andrew H. Foote before Grant in the message of congratulations to the Department of Missouri. Halleck then suggested to McClellan that the Army honor not Grant but his subordinate, C.F. Smith, who had indeed played a key role on the left flank during the battle for Donelson. Halleck recommended that the Army promote Smith over Grant’s head, pointing out that “by his coolness and bravery at Fort Donelson when the battle was against us, [Smith] turned the tide and carried the enemy’s outworks. Make him a major-general. You can’t get a better one. Honor him for this victory and the whole country will applaud.”

snip...

In a March 3 dispatch—two weeks having gone by since Halleck suggested the promotion of Smith over Grant and asked for overall command of the West for himself, and with neither request having been granted—Halleck stopped pussyfooting and planted the knife squarely in Grant’s back. He made accusations McClellan could not ignore: “I have had no communication with General Grant for more than a week. He left his command without my authority and went to Nashville. His army seems to be as much demoralized by the victory of Fort Donelson as was that of the Potomac by the defeat of Bull Run. It is hard to censure a successful general immediately after a victory, but I think he richly deserves it. I can get no returns, no reports, no information of any kind from him. Satisfied with his victory, he sits down and enjoys it without any regard to the future. I am worn-out and tired with this neglect and inefficiency. C.F. Smith is almost the only officer equal to the emergency.”

snip..

With a sneering reference to Grant’s alleged drinking problems, Halleck had now unwittingly revealed that he was removing a victorious commander on the basis of a rumor. Nonetheless, Halleck directed Grant to turn his command over to Smith. He told Grant that he was embarrassed by having to reply to War Department telegrams that he did not know what Grant’s troop strengths were. The War Department had sent no such wires.

snip...

Suddenly, with victory over Grant seemingly in his grasp, Halleck’s fortunes began to reverse. He had set a trap for himself by passing on rumors as fact and making up charges against Grant. The charges were so serious that the adjutant-general of the Army, Lorenzo Thomas, snapped the trap shut by asking for a full account of Grant’s misdeeds. This demand for details originated with President Abraham Lincoln, who wanted to know just what it was that his most successful combat general had done to deserve such a blizzard of disapproval from his immediate commander. Halleck was caught in the position of having to give substance to rumors and his own lies. As a lawyer, he must have appreciated how a full investigation of the matter would make him look.
 
Top