Orland Smith

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Orland Smith (May 2, 1825 – October 3, 1903) was a railroad executive and a brigade commander in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He led a spirited bayonet charge during the Battle of Wauhatchie that took a significant Confederate position on a hill that now bears his name.

Smith was born in New England in Lewiston, Maine. He was educated in the local schools and became a railroad agent, serving as station manager at Lewiston until 1852 when he moved to Ohio. He became an official of the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad and settled in Chillicothe, Ohio. When the railroad fell into financial difficulties, he was appointed receiver. Smith was a commander of a militia company in the late 1850s, the "Chillicothe Greys."

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Smith joined the Union army and became the Colonel of the 73rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, raised in Chillicothe, and trained at nearby Camp Logan. Among his volunteer soldiers was Pvt. George Nixon III, the great-grandfather of future President Richard Nixon. The regiment saw action as a part of the Army of Virginia during the Second Battle of Bull Run, after previously serving in western Virginia and fighting at the Battle of McDowell and the Battle of Cross Keys.

Smith assumed brigade command in the XI Corps on October 25, 1862, but he did not participate in the Battle of Chancellorsville. He returned to his command shortly before the Gettysburg Campaign, after [Francis Barlow]], who had led the brigade at Chancellorsville, was given command of the first division on May 24, 1863. Smith's men held Cemetery Hill on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg at the orders of Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard, and provided an anchor for the retreating Federal soldiers. On the second day, three of Smith's regiments were engaged in heavy skirmishing in front of Cemetery Hill, and the 33rd Massachusetts, deployed between East Cemetery Hill and Stevens Knoll, helped repulse an attack by Brig. Gen. Harry T. Hays' "Louisiana Tigers".

Smith's brigade was sent to the Western Theater in the autumn of 1863 along with the rest of the XI Corps. During the Chattanooga Campaign, Smith led his brigade in the Army of the Cumberland in a successful bayonet assault up a steep hill that now bears his name (Smith's Hill) during the Battle of Wauhatchie. In the army reorganization later that year, his brigade was disbanded and he returned - on January 3, 1864 - to the command of the 73rd OVI. He was breveted as a brigadier general on March 13, 1865.

After the war, he returned to his career as a railroad officer and became President of the Cincinnati, Washington and Baltimore Railroad and later, First Vice President of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, with his office in Baltimore, Maryland. According to his obituary, from 1884 to 1899 he was president of the Columbus and Cincinnati Midland Road.

Smith died in Chicago, Illinois. He is buried in Green Lawn Cemetery, Columbus, Ohio.

[edit] References

Eicher, John H., & Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
Pfanz, Harry W., Gettysburg: Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993, ISBN 0-8078-2118-7.
Dyer, Frederick H., Compendium of the War of the Rebellion, Des Moines, Ia. Dyer Pub. Co., 1908.
Obituary in the New York Times, October 4, 1903.