Civil War Service
Upon President Lincoln's call for volunteers at the outbreak of the Civil War, Atkins immediately chose to defend the Union cause and entered the volunteer ranks of his home state. He served in the western theater of the conflict. He was appointed a captain in the 11th Illinois Infantry on April 30, 1861, and was promoted to major on March 21, 1862. By April he was assistant adjutant general of the 4th Division in the Army of the Tennessee, but resigned on April 17 to take a two-month respite from duty for health reasons.
Atkins re-entered military service that fall when he was appointed the colonel of the 92nd Illinois Mounted Infantry on September 4, 1862. By February 1863 he was given brigade command in the Army of Kentucky (Department of the Cumberland) until June 8. Next he commanded a brigade in the Army of the Cumberland's Reserve Corps until July 15, when he was transferred to the Department's Cavalry Corps. He then commanded two brigades of cavalry of the Department of the Cumberland and one in the Military Department of the Mississippi in 1864 and into 1865. During these commands, he led a brigade of cavalry during Major General William T. Sherman's March to the Sea.
Although Atkins was not appointed as a full, substantive grade general, on January 23, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln nominated Atkins to the grade of brevet brigadier general of volunteers, to rank from January 12, 1865, and the U.S. Senate confirmed the award on February 14, 1865. Atkins was mustered out of the volunteer service on June 21, 1865 and he returned to his civilian life in Illinois. On March 21, 1866, President Andrew Johnson nominated Atkins for the award of the grade of brevet major general of volunteers, to rank from March 13, 1865, and the U.S. Senate confirmed the award on April 26, 1866.
Read more about this topic: Smith D. Atkins
Famous quotes containing the words civil war, civil, war and/or service:
“Since the Civil War its six states have produced fewer political ideas, as political ideas run in the Republic, than any average county in Kansas or Nebraska.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“... one of the blind spots of most Negroes is their failure to realize that small overtures from whites have a large significance ... I now realize that this feeling inevitably takes possession of one in the bitter struggle for equality. Indeed, I share it. Yet I wonder how we can expect total acceptance to step full grown from the womb of prejudice, with no embryo or infancy or childhood stages.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 10 (1962)
“... the ... radio station played a Chopin polonaise. On all the following days news bulletins were prefaced by Chopin—preludes, etudes, waltzes, mazurkas. The war became for me a victory, known in advance, Chopin over Hitler.”
—Margaret Anderson (1886–1973)
“The master class seldom lose a chance to insult a woman who has the ability for something besides service to his lordship.”
—Caroline Nichols Churchill (1833–?)