Confederate Generals in the Western Theater, volume 3: Essays on America's Civil War

Martin Luther Smith and the Defense of the Lower Mississippi River Valley, 1861–1863

Martin Luther Smith and the Defense of the Lower Mississippi River Valley, 1861–1863 Arthur W. Bergeron Jr. OF ALL THE CONFEDERATE GENERALS INVOLVED IN THE DEFENSE OF THE LOWER MISsissippi Valley from 1861 to 1863, only one played a significant role at both New Orleans and Vicksburg—Martin Luther Smith. Trained and employed in the old army as an engineer officer, Smith first served the Confederacy in that capacity but eventually found himself in charge of a brigade and later a division, both of mixed arms. He proved a competent and solid, though not flashy, commander at the Crescent City and at the Gibraltar of the Confederacy . History has largely ignored Smith’s role in these campaigns, perhaps because his death within a year of war’s end meant that he left no writings about his experiences. His performance deserves more recognition. Smith was born on September 9, 1819, at Danby, in Tompkins County, New York. His father, Luther Smith, had moved there from his home in Maine. Martin entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1838 and graduated sixteenth in the class of 1842. He received a commission as brevet second lieutenant in the topographical engineers. Smith’s service during the next five years consisted of making a survey for the defenses of St. Mary’s Sound, Florida; improving navigation in the St. Mark’s and Choctawhatchee rivers in Florida; and assisting with a survey of Ossabaw Sound, Georgia. Smith married Sarah Evalina Nisbet, daughter of John and Harriet Cooper Nisbet, in Athens, Georgia, on July 28, 1846.1 When the Mexican War began in 1846, he was in Texas making surveys of Matagorda Bay and its bar. Smith received orders that October to report for duty with Major General Winfield Scott. Along with Robert E. Lee, P. G. T. Beauregard, and George B. McClellan, he conducted a reconnaissance of the Mexican defenses on the hill known as El Peñon just outside the City of Arthur W. Bergeron Jr. 62 Mexico. Smith became one of the original members of the Aztec Club at the City of Mexico in 1847. He remained at the Mexican capital when American troops began leaving the country so he could assist in completing surveys for a map of the area around the city. The Mexican government then requested his services in establishing a drainage system for the city. Smith was brevetted first lieutenant on May 30, 1848, for meritorious conduct in carrying out the reconnaissance and in the mapping project.2 Smith returned to the United States and engineering duties. From 1849 to 1852, he conducted surveys for the improvement of the Savannah River in Georgia and did survey work in the Department of Texas. Next Smith made surveys for a ship canal across the Florida peninsula in 1853–54. Having received promotion to the rank of 1st lieutenant on March 3, 1853, he received orders in 1855 to report to the Topographical Bureau in Washington, D.C., to serve as an assistant there. Smith remained on this duty for about a year and was promoted to captain “for fourteen years’ continuous service.” The following year, he took charge of the Coast Survey Office and held that position until 1859. At that time, Smith again went to Florida on coastal survey duty. His reputation was such that he was named chief engineer of the Florida Railroad in 1856. Chartered in 1853 by David Levy Yulee, a U.S. senator, this line eventually ran from Fernandina across the peninsula to Cedar Key. Smith was on duty in Florida when war clouds began spreading after the election of Abraham Lincoln and the secession of South Carolina.3 Yulee wrote President Jefferson Davis on March 1, 1861, and stated that Smith wished “to connect himself with our new army” and would “take the first moment of invitation from our southern Govt to declare his choice of allegiance.” Yulee assured Davis that Smith’s “associations, feelings, & interests are with the South.” The former senator urged prompt action regarding Smith “for its effect upon other officers of northern nativity whose judgment & feelings incline them to us.”4 Three days later, Eugenius A. Nisbet, an attorney in Macon, Georgia, and former congressman, wrote on Smith’s behalf to Secretary of War Leroy P. Walker. Nisbet told Walker, “I am authorized to say, that if your Government needs his services, he will resign & take position in the Army of the Confederate States...