WARTIME VIEW OF VMI PROFESSOR & CONFEDERATE OFFICER FRANCIS H. SMITH

$1,750.00

Quantity Available: 1

Item Code: 846-403

CDV is a waist-up view of Smith wearing a dark civilian suit, white shirt and dark bowtie.

Contrast and clarity are excellent. Paper and mount are also good. Mount corners show just the slightest clip.

Reverse has a photographer’s imprint for KELLEY & PETTIGREW… LEXINGTON, VA. ID is confirmed by several identified on-line images.

Francis Henney Smith was born in Norfolk, Virginia on October 18, 1812.

Smith was an 1833 graduate of the United States Military Academy and served as an assistant Professor there from 1833 to 1836. He then served as a professor of mathematics at Hampden Sidney College from 1837 to 1839. He moved to Lexington, Virginia in 1839 to assist with the organization of the Virginia Military Institute, being appointed its first superintendent. He served in that office for the next 50 years, guiding the institution through the Civil War years.

During the war, Smith was made a brevet brigadier general in the Virginia Militia and for a very short time was colonel of the 9th Virginia Volunteer Infantry before reverting to colonel of the VMI Cadet Battalion only. Smith was not present with the Cadets for their famous charge at New Market being left behind ill.

Smith oversaw the reconstruction of VMI after its destruction in 1864, and remained as superintendent until December 31, 1889. He died in Lexington on March 21, 1890, at the age of 77, and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Lexington, Virginia. [ad] [ph:L]

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