James Washington Smith, our 2nd great-grandfather
After the Revolutionary War, the Smith side of the family had a complicated past with both Southern and Northern sympathies—sometimes within the same family. Over the years, some owned slaves and fought to maintain that society. Others emancipated them and moved out of the South. And then there were those non-slave owners who signed on to fight for the Confederacy. Others were abolitionists who fought on the Union side.
As many Southerners would claim in the early 1900s in what was called “The Lost Cause,” they were fighting for States’ Rights. This is total bullshit. It was ALL about maintaining slavery as an institution. Simply look at a speech by Alexander Hamilton Stephens, the Vice President of the Confederacy. In what became known as the “Cornerstone Speech,” where Stephens declared what the foundation of the new Confederate government would be based on.
“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.”
Their thoughts were pretty clear-cut.
Enlistment
James Washington Smith enlisted in the military on December 17, 1861, in Virginia, when he was 43 years old. He was a Bugler in Company K, VA 8th Cavalry. James was called by his middle name of “Washington” or “Wash.”
From the book “8th Virginia Cavalry” by Jack L. Dickinson,
“This company enlisted May 28, 1861, and was called Big Sandy Rangers. It was originally known as Capt. James M. Corns’ Company. The Sandy Rangers were nicknamed the “bloodtubs” due to the bright red flannel hunting shores and caps they wore for several months in early 1861. In its early days, the unit consisted of 53 members, but this grew to 110 when it incorporated the Fairview Rifle Guards.”
Info is provided by Lambert’s Papers 4:13….
The Smith household was included in the 1850 and 1860 censuses of Wayne Co. One great-granddaughter, Pauline Smith Gilkerson, recalls seeing a picture of James Washington with a lock of his red hair attached.
A relative of ours lives near me in San Jose and has the photo and the lock of hair in her possession.
Early Battles
Skirmish at Camp Creek, Stone River Valley, WVA – 5/1/1862
“The Battle lasted for about one-half hour, then reinforcements came from Princeton, and it looked like a victory for the Confederates. But soon they saw the Union soldiers coming about a quarter mile away. As far as they could see there were soldiers, and seemingly no end to them.”
23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry was commanded by a 38-year-old Harvard-educated lawyer with no military experience before the war by the name of Rutherford B. Hayes. The future 19th US President.
Among the men of the 23rd Ohio was a newly promoted commissary sergeant, William McKinley. A brash and spirited 19-year-old, McKinley would also become President (25th) of the United States.
300 CSA soldiers faced the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry (Co. "C"). Union loss, 1 killed, 20 wounded. CSA loss, 6 killed 5/1/1862 • Camp Creek, Mercer, West Virginia, USA
Action at Giles County Court-House – 5/10/1862
Gen. Henry Heth, commander of the area’s Southern forces, managed to cobble together an army of some 2000 men and five artillery pieces. Lt. Col. Rutherford B Hayes soon realized that the gathering Confederates force far outnumbered his regiment of around 600 men. Heth also had artillery while Hayes had none.
Hayes sent a series of desperate but unheeded requests to his commander for reinforcements. Early in the morning of May 10, the Confederates attacked Hayes’ first line of defense just south of town. In an hours-long running battle the Federals fell back through the town and up the river, making several futile stands along the way. At the Narrows, Heth continued to pound the Union troops with artillery. Hayes was wounded and his regiment retreated to Princeton.
The action at Giles Court House effectively ended the Union advance to Central Depot and saved – for a time – the strategic Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. It can even be said that Hayes’ defeat ensured that Giles County remained a part of the state of Virginia, and not part of the new unionist state of West Virginia.
2000 CSA soldiers and five artillery pieces faced the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry of 600 soldiers. Losses of 2 or 3 killed on either side and several wounded. 5/10/1862 • Giles County, Virginia, USA
Skirmish in the North
Jenkins’ expedition in West Virginia and Ohio – 8/22/1862 to 9/19/1862
Jenkins March through future West Virginia and Southern Ohio
Jenkins’ expedition in West Virginia and Ohio. On August 22, 1862, newly appointed Confederate Brigadier General Albert Gallatin Jenkins began a raid through Western Virginia. It was in response to a string of events that began with Robert E. Lee’s impending invasion of Maryland.
On September 4, the raiders crossed the Ohio River in Jackson County—about 60 miles north of Jenkins’s home at Green Bottom—and became the first to raise a Confederate flag on Ohio soil.
8/22/1862 • West Virginia, USA
Present and Accounted For
James Washington Smith Muster Card
Future West Virginia
Battle of White Sulphur Springs, WV – 8/26-27/1863
In obedience to an order from Col. George S. Patton, commanding the Confederate forces, the Twenty-second Regiment, consisting of nine companies (Company K being stationed at the Narrows of New River), was formed in line of battle to support and immediately in front of Chapman’s battery, with orders to hold the position at all hazards, this being the center of the Confederate lines. The strength of the regiment actually in the fight was about 500, aggregate.
That Col. George S Patton was the grandfather of World War II general
George S. Patton
Tennessee Battle
Battle of Rogersville – 11/6/1863
The Battle of Rogersville was a conflict in and around the town of Rogersville, Tennessee on the morning of November 6, 1863, between the United States Army 3rd Brigade, 4th Cavalry Division and the 2nd East Tennessee Mounted Infantry, and the Confederate States Army Jones’ Brigade, 2nd Cavalry Brigade and the 8th Virginia Cavalry. Because Federal forces were caught largely by surprise, the Confederates, under Brigadier General William E. Jones, were able to recapture Rogersville along with significant supplies from the town’s railroad storehouses.
Death
Battle of Jonesville, Lee County, Virginia – 1/03/1864
“Washington” was wounded in the Battle of Jonesville, Lee County, Virginia. The battle took place on January 3, 1864. Confederate General William E. Jones, assisted by Colonel A.L. Pridemore, defeated a Union Force and captured the battalion. The Union battalion, under the direction of Major Beers, surrendered with 383 men, 3 pieces of light artillery, and 27 6-mule teams. Only two of Pridemore’s men were killed in the battle, and four wounded. About that many were killed and wounded from General Jone’s brigade. The Union troops lost 40 men, killed and wounded. Union troops burned the courthouse, located in the heart of Jonesville, in 1864.
They also burned down Franklin Academy, claiming that it had been used as a Confederate Hospital.
Washington Smith died of gangrene, from complications of a knee wound about a week after the battle. He "was" buried there.
Note from Don:
New information I just read in the “8th Virginia Cavalry” by Jack L. Dickinson, tells a different story. A Confederate plot at the Spring Hill Cemetery in Huntington West Virginia was established in the late 1800’s and many members of the 8th Virginia Cavalry were buried there. In 1895, a resolution was passed by the Camp Garnett chapter of the United Confederate Veterans to exhume and move fellow 8th Cavalry members killed and buried in Tennessee and Virginia to this Confederate plot in Spring Hill. It further states that “Lt. Alexander Samuels, Henry Baumgardner, Lon Love and Charles Shoemaker (all were killed at the same battle as James Washington Smith) were moved to Spring Hill. This author confirmed that they are indeed interred there along with over 400 Confederate soldiers including 4 unknown soldiers (each grave marked with a big X) near these soldiers.
It is my belief that one of these “unknown” soldiers could very well be James Washington Smith moved there at the same time as these 4 other soldiers killed in the same battle.
Don Smith – My biological Mother was Kathleen Smith, her father was John Beverly Smith, son of James Washington Smith. I have previously confirmed the service in the 8th Virginia Calvary. Just curious to learn of the other siblings and family connections.
Elsie Kroussakis
ekroussakis@gmail.com