Biography
Smith was born in Jefferson County, New York. When he was 18, he moved to southwestern Ohio, and for a decade engaged in business in Cincinnati. In the late 1850s, he moved to Bloomington, Illinois, where he was proprietor of a hotel.
At the beginning of the Civil War, he joined the 8th Missouri Volunteer Infantry, in which he became a captain. He took part in the capture of Fort Donelson, the Battle of Shiloh, and the operations against Corinth, becoming, later in 1862, colonel of a regiment which he led at Chickasaw Bayou. After the final campaign against Vicksburg, he was promoted brigadier general of volunteers. He was wounded at the Third Battle of Chattanooga. He took part in the Atlanta Campaign, the March to the Sea and the Carolinas Campaign, rising to the rank of major general of volunteers.
After the war, he declined the offer of a colonelcy in the Regular Army, and was subsequently engaged in Illinois politics, retiring from public life in 1872. Smith was an Illinois delegate to the Republican National Convention. He moved to California in 1874 in a futile attempt to improve his health, but returned to Illinois two months before his death. He died at Bloomington, Illinois, and was buried there.
His brother Morgan Lewis Smith was also a general.
Read more about this topic: Giles Alexander Smith
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