'I am a disarmed prisoner!' Sad life of General Thomas Smith

Thomas Benton Smith, shown in a war-time image, spent more than half his life in an insane asylum.
(CLICK ON ALL IMAGES TO ENLARGE.)

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On a winter day in 1876, former Confederate brigadier general Thomas Benton Smith armed himself with a bow and arrows, mounted a horse and rode near Nashville "attacking everyone he met." Among the 37-year-old veteran's victims was his cousin, struck in the thigh with a steel-tipped arrow and nearly killed. "Imagining himself to be the Indian Emperor of America," Smith fled into the hills around the city, where he finally was captured with "great difficulty."

In 1876, Thomas Benton Smith became "hopelessly
insane," leading to his sister having him committed.
This story was published in many U.S. newspapers.

Obviously unwell, the Tennessee native was committed by his sister to the Central Hospital for the Insane in Nashville, a foreboding, castle-like building southeast of the city. For the next 47 years, Smith was held there, reportedly leaving only once or twice a year for Confederate veterans' reunions. He was a "pathetic figure," the local newspaper wrote of the bachelor who once was one of the top generals in the Army of Tennessee.

After Smith was committed, the reunions apparently became the highlights of his life. At an early-20th century event, he became a commander again, running old soldiers through drills from Hardee's Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics manual. Although he suffered from depression, "General Smith was self-poised” that day, according to an account, "as full of the animation of the old days as could be imagined." Despite his dementia, he showed off a "remarkable memory" at another reunion by calling all his old comrades by name.

But at another gathering of former Southern soldiers in 1901, Smith bemoaned his circumstances. "This is the only free day I have in the year," the 63-year-old told an acquaintance. "All of you should be happy, for you are free every day. When this day is ended, I will have to go back to those terrible prison walls."

How did the once-promising life of Thomas Benton Smith -- who rose from captain in the 20th Tennessee to colonel and finally to "Boy General" -- take such a terrible turn? For the answer to that question, we must go back to another gloomy day, Dec. 16, 1864, atop a hill near Granny White Pike during the Battle of Nashville.

"When this day is ended," Thomas Benton Smith told an acquaintance in 1901 at a Confederate 
veterans' reunion,  "I will have to go back to those terrible prison walls" of the insane asylum.

The steep slopes of Compton's Hill, better known as Shy's Hill, defended by General Smith's soldiers.

        PANORAMA: Crest of Shy's Hill, known as Compton's Hill during the Civil War.
                                     (Click at upper right for full-screen experience.)

Out-gunned, out-manned perhaps 3-to-1 and nearly surrounded on the rainy afternoon, the Confederates atop Compton's Hill (Shy's Hill) were desperate. In command of a brigade in William Bate's division, 26-year-old Thomas Benton Smith had somehow held out against the Federals, leaving the steep hillside strewn with their dead and wounded. But it was obvious he had no chance of victory, and at about 3:30 p.m., a portion of the line occupied by his soldiers gave way.

"The enemy," Army of Cumberland commander George Thomas wrote, "was hopelessly broken."

Explained Army of Tennessee commander John Bell Hood in his after-action report: "The position gained by the enemy being such as to enfilade our line caused in a few moments our entire line to give way, and our troops to retreat rapidly down the pike in the direction of Franklin, most of them, I regret to say, in great confusion, all efforts to reform them being fruitless."

Besides losing 54 cannon, more than 1,500 soldiers Hood could ill-afford to lose became prisoners of war -- including Smith. As the general was marched to the rear, probably down Granny White Pike north toward Nashville, a Federal officer approached him. Perhaps drunk or simply incensed by Union losses -- no one knows for sure -- Colonel William L. McMillen of the 95th Ohio struck Smith on the head with his saber.

Then he struck him again.

Post-war image of William McMillen,
the colonel who slashed
Thomas Benton Smith with his saber.

Seething, the former Union army surgeon hit Smith, who stood a little over 6 feet, one more time with his weapon.

"I am a disarmed prisoner!" Smith cried out during the beating, witnessed by at least two soldiers in the 20th Tennessee, the general's former regiment.

A witness, 20th Tennessee Private Monroe Mitchell, recalled in 1891:

"Gen. Smith had just gotten through a gap in a rock fence, when I saw a Federal Major, his rank being indicated by his uniform, approach him. This officer was a man probably of 150 pounds in weight and perhaps 5 foot 11 inches or thereabouts. He was very angry and said to Gen. Smith, 'Come here, you d----d rebel s-- of a b----. Here you are living, and (he called some Federal Colonel's name which I did not catch) is dead or dying!' "

McMillen, according to Mitchell, then drew his sword and struck Smith on the head, the first blow knocking off the general's hat. The blows were so hard they bent the colonel's saber. "Yes, G-d d----- you, I mean what I say," McMillen said. Smith fell to his knees, Mitchell recalled, "perfectly erect and calm while receiving the blows."

Rushed to a Federal field hospital, Smith was examined by a surgeon, who gave him no hope. "Well," he said, "you are near the end of your battles, for I can see the brain oozing through the gap in your skull."

"Is it possible that this cowardly wretch could have been anything other than a Yankee bounty jumper," a 20th Tennessee regimental historian wrote about McMillen, "or perhaps a Southern deserter? One is as good as the other." (McMillen, in fact, was accused of cowardly conduct for actions during a battle near Richmond, Ky., in 1862. He was court-martialed and acquitted.)

Miraculously surviving the brutal attack, Smith was sent first sent to a Federal prison in Nashville.  Later, he was held at Johnson's Island in Ohio and then at Fort Warren in Boston. In a plea for his release, Smith wrote to President Andrew Johnson in June 1865: "I ... have been severely wounded several times, lost killed, the only brother I had, and am the only son of an aged widowed Mother, who is in moderate circumstances."

Released July 24, 1865, Smith returned home, but the effects of the attack in Nashville haunted him the rest of his life.

Front-page story about Thomas Benton Smith in the Nashville Tennessean on June 30, 1907.

After the war,  Smith ran for Congress in 1870 (he lost) and worked in various roles, including conductor, for the railroad. But he eventually was crippled by bouts of depression, perhaps caused by the brain injury suffered in 1864, and could not take care of himself.

Sometimes, Smith was blunt with others about his mental health. While wandering the grounds of the asylum one day, he encountered a hunter. After Smith asked to examine his weapon, the young man handed it to the old soldier. "You have done a foolish thing. You have put a loaded gun in my hands. I live over there," he told the hunter, pointing to the asylum, "and I'm crazy at times. I might shoot you. Don't ever give your gun to a stranger." Most of the time Smith was "perfectly rational," according to a newspaper account, "although occasionally he has an attack of homicidal mania."

In 1907, the Nashville Tennessean published a lengthy, front-page feature about Smith under the headline "A Gallant Confederate Soldier Who Suffered Worse Than Death."

"Although for nearly thirty years Gen. Smith has been in retirement, he is still in the most affectionate remembrance by those of his comrades who are still living," the newspaper wrote. "This fact alone seems a guaranty of his noble courteous nature, as well as his invincible spirit. Whenever the name of this brave Confederate soldier is mentioned the men who spent four terrible years fighting by his side seem eager to add to his meed of praise. They all love 'Tom Smith' and seem to think it particularly hard that he should have been singled out as the victim of fate's cruel trick."

Thomas Benton Smith's gravestone at Mt. Olivet Cemetery
in Nashville (Find A Grave)

Ten years later, at the height of World War I, a Confederate veteran from Tennessee lamented the beating Smith took at the hands of McMillen, whom he called a "German soldier." The federal government, the man wrote in a letter to the editor published in the Tennessean, should "atone in some way for the infliction of this great wrong on an honorable and defenseless soldier, fighting for his country in a cause he believed to be just and right.

"It is none too late to do the right thing."

Although there is no known record of the government doing the "right thing," the Grand Army of the Republic post in New Orleans reportedly revoked McMillen's membership when it got wind of his barbarous treatment of Smith during the war. Perhaps that brought the general a small measure of satisfaction. McMillen, who had moved to Louisiana in 1866, died in Ohio in 1902.

Smith outlived his Civil War tormentor by 21 years, dying at 85 of chronic myocarditis on May 21, 1923, at the insane asylum that was his home more than half his life. His passing was a big deal, meriting Page 1 coverage in the Tennessean and a service with military honors in the State Capitol Building in Nashville. While Smith's remains lay in state there under military guard, the bier was draped with two flags -- the Stars and Stripes and Stars and Bars.

"... I was often at reunions with him," a gray-bearded 20th Tennessee veteran near the coffin at the State Capitol Building told a reporter. "I loved him; we all loved him."

A prisoner no more, Smith was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Nashville.

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SOURCES

-- Confederate Veteran, December 1910.
-- The News Journal, Wilmington, Del., Jan. 29, 1876.
-- Nashville Tennessean, April 12, 1891, Sept. 21, 1901, Sept. 22, 1906, June 30, 1907, Feb. 27, 1913, Aug. 22, 1917, May 27, 1923, Dec. 6, 1964.
-- McMurray, William J., History of the Twentieth Tennessee Regiment Volunteer Infantry, C.S.A,, Nashville, The Publication Committee, consisting of W.J. McMurray, D.J. Roberts, and R.J. Neal, 1904.