"What Separates the Honorable Men from the Cowardly Kids"
"... Smith and his men were captured and summarily marched, along with 1,533 others, through the Federal dead and wounded, who lay thick on the steep slopes of the Overton hills. The Union soldiers realized the Confederates had surrendered and, according to one Illinois soldier, began “shouting, yelling, and acting like maniacs for a while.” Apparently, this revelry must have angered the exasperated Smith. As he was being marched to the rear, eyewitnesses reported he allegedly exchanged words with Federal Colonel William L. McMillen. Two fellow prisoners, Monroe Mitchell, a private of Company B and Lieutenant J.W. Morgan of Company F, 20th Tennessee Regiment, recounted that McMillen appeared drunk. Whether the man was intoxicated or inflamed from the recent bloodshed, his temper overcame him, and he began verbally assailing Benton Smith, cursing and abusing him.
Mitchell and Morgan said Smith’s only reply was, “I am a disarmed prisoner.” At that remark, McMillen struck the twenty-six-year-old Smith over the head with his saber three times, each blow cutting through Smith’s hat, the last driving him to the ground, and fracturing Smith’s skull, inflicting serious damage to the brain. Observers believed McMillen would have continued the brutal assault had his own men not pulled him off Benton Smith..."
[Yankee Defined in the sentences above]
[Read Below for Honor Defined]
"... The dashing “Boy General,” of the 20th Tennessee was told by a Union Surgeon, “Well you are near the end of your battles, for I can see the brain oozing through the gap in the skull.”
The surgeon was correct in his assumption that Smith’s war career had come to an end, however, Smith would survive, only to remain a victim of a horrible cowardly attack for the remainder of his life..."
".. This regiment commenced with 1165, and ended with only 34 men. The great State of Tennessee and the Confederacy will ever look upon the deeds of such sons with the pride of a father, who recurs to the acts of his boy with the glad plaudit of ‘Well done.’”
After the incident, Smith was taken to the Tennessee State Prison in Nashville, which was being used as a hospital. Following his miraculous recovery from the horrendous head wounds, he was shipped north to Fort Warren prison, in Boston harbor. After his release, life in the Reconstruction Era South was not easy and was made more difficult by Smith’s physical and emotional trauma..."
".. Smith returned to the Triune community where he lived with his widowed mother, Martha Smith. Shortly after her death, Benton began to succumb to frequent bouts of depression and mania brought on by the severity of the brain damage he sustained at the close of the War of Northern Aggression. In 1876, his sister, Mrs. Johnson Wood, had no choice but to commit Smith to the Central Hospital for the Insane after he painted himself up as an Indian, declared he was chief, and, with bow and arrow, rode naked up and down the Pike, whooping like a savage. When his cousin, a diminutive hunchback named Jason Page, tried to interfere, Smith fired an arrow into his thigh, nearly killing Page. Smith was deemed dangerous to himself and others and placed in the care of Dr. Callender at the insane asylum, where he remained, off and on, for the remainder of his life..."
".. Another Confederate Veteran account of Smith’s appearances at the reunions stated: “At a recent reunion of the 20th Tennessee Regiment at Nashville, Tennessee, in the beautiful Centennial Park where was held the Tennessee Centennial Exposition in 1897, General Thomas Benton Smith, an early commander of the regiment, who has been in the Tennessee Insane Asylum nearly ever since the war, from a saber cut on the head after he surrendered in the battle of Nashville, was in command from a drill and short parade. The regiment was formed as a company, and the drill master, though now somewhat venerable, although he is said to have been the youngest brigadier general in the Confederacy, carried the men through the manual of Hardee’s tactics as if half a century were half a year. General Smith was self-poised, as full of the animation of the old days as could be imagined. When they stood at ‘Right dress! Eyes right!’ he said: ‘Throw them sticks down; you don’t need them!’ A picture of that scene and a repetition of all he said would be most pleasing. General Smith has times of deep depression, and is sad over his long imprisonment, but he is always happy at Confederate gatherings, and is still a magnificent specimen of Confederate manhood.”
Thomas Benton Smith passed away, on Monday 21 May 1923, at the asylum where he had spent most of his life, from a heart condition, after complaining of not feeling well before supper. He was eighty-six years old and had outlived all but two Confederate generals..."
Source: https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/thomas-benton-smith-the-boy-general/
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