CDV of Confederate General Kirby Smith / SOLD

CDV of Confederate General Kirby Smith - Inventory Number: CDV 318 / SOLD

"E. & H. T. Anthony, 501 Broadway, New York" Backmark with nice period ink identification.  

Edmund Kirby Smith (May 16, 1824 – March 28, 1893) was a career United States Army officer who fought in the Mexican-American War and Civil War. He served as a general in the Confederate States Army, notable for his command of the Trans-Mississippi Department after the fall of Vicksburg to the U.S.

Smith was wounded at First Bull Run and distinguished himself during the Heartland Offensive, the Confederacy's unsuccessful attempt to capture Kentucky in 1862. He was appointed as commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department in January 1863. The area included most actions east of the Rocky Mountains and west of the Mississippi River. In 1863, Smith dispatched troops in an unsuccessful attempt to relieve the Siege of Vicksburg. After Vicksburg was captured by the Union in July, the isolated Trans-Mississippi zone was cut off from the rest of the Confederacy, and became virtually an independent nation, nicknamed 'Kirby Smithdom'. In the Red River Campaign of Spring 1864, he commanded victorious Confederate troops under General Richard Taylor, who defeated a combined Union army/navy assault under Nathaniel P. Banks.

On June 2, 1865, Smith surrendered his army at Galveston, Texas, the last general with a major field force. He quickly escaped to Mexico and then to Cuba to avoid arrest for treason. His wife negotiated his return during the period when the federal government offered amnesty to those who would take an oath of loyalty. After the war, Smith worked in the telegraph and railway industries. He primarily served as a college professor of mathematics and botany at the University of the South in Tennessee. He is credited with the discovery of several species of plants in Tennessee and Florida.

Inventory Number: CDV 318 / SOLD