Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi division, surrenders on May 26, 1865, one of the last Confederate generals to capitulate. Kirby Smith, who had become commander of the area in January 1863, was charged with keeping the Mississippi River open to the Southerners. Yet he was more interested in recapturing Arkansas and Missouri, largely because of the influence of Arkansans in the Confederate Congress who helped to secure his appointment.
Drawing sharp criticism for his failure to provide relief for Vicksburg, Mississippi in the summer of 1863, Kirby Smith later conducted the resistance to the Union’s failed Red River campaign of 1864. When the Confederate forces under Robert E. Lee and Joseph Johnston surrendered in the spring of 1865, Kirby Smith continued to resist with his small army in Texas. He insisted that Lee and Johnston were prisoners of war and decried Confederate deserters. On May 26, General Simon Buckner, acting for Smith, met with Union officers in New Orleans to arrange the surrender of Kirby Smith’s force under terms similar to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Kirby Smith reluctantly agreed, and officially laid down his arms at Galveston on June 2. Kirby Smith himself fled to Mexico, and then to Cuba, before returning to Virginia in November 1865 to sign an amnesty oath. He was the last surviving full Confederate general until his death in 1893.
Twenty-three days after Kirby Smith’s surrender, Brigadier General Stand Watie, a Cherokee, became the last Confederate field general to surrender.
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Too bad any of them did! Look what we got for it
“Governor, if I had foreseen the use those people designed to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox Courthouse; no sir, not by me. Had I foreseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in this right hand.”
General Robert E. Lee, August 1870 to Governor Stockdale of Texas
On July 1, 1841, Smith entered West Point and graduated four years later in 1845, ranking 25th out of 41 cadets.
They were almost all West Point trained.
And, much beyond he training the DEI shit school provides today.
He served as the chancellor of the University of Nashville from 1870 to 1875.[28]
In 1875, Smith left that post to become a professor of mathematics and botany at the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee.[8] Part of his collection from those years was donated to the universities of North Carolina and Harvard, and to the Smithsonian Institution. He kept up a correspondence with botanists at other institutions. He taught at the University of the South until he died of pneumonia in 1893. He was the last surviving full general from the Civil War. He is buried in the University Cemetery at Sewanee.[9]
History.com don’t know the Mississippi River flows through Arkansas and Missouri. History.ClownWorldBullshit should be their URL.
“was charged with keeping the Mississippi River open to the Southerners. Yet he was more interested in recapturing Arkansas and Missouri”
On the same note, history via soyjak journalists is not history.
“It appears we have appointed our worst generals to command forces, and our most gifted and brilliant to edit newspapers! In fact, I discovered by reading newspapers that these editor/geniuses plainly saw all my strategic defects from the start, yet failed to inform me until it was too late. Accordingly, I’m readily willing to yield my command to these obviously superior intellects, and I’ll, in turn, do my best for the Cause by writing editorials – after the fact.”
Robert E. Lee, 1863
Even Wiki knows History.com is full of bias shit.
On January 14, 1863, Smith was transferred to command the Trans-Mississippi Department (comprising Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, western Louisiana, Arizona Territory, and the Indian Territory). He remained west of the Mississippi River for the balance of the war, based part of this time in Shreveport, Louisiana. As forces under U.S. Major-General Ulysses S. Grant tightened their grip on the river, Smith attempted to intervene. However, his department never had more than 30,000 men stationed over an immense area, and he could not concentrate forces adequately to challenge Grant nor the U.S. Navy on the river.[19]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Kirby_Smith
With a few exceptions the South had really bad general officers in the West.
Especially Braxton Bragg. He was a real Bastard. How his men suffered because of his incompetency. Hood also sucked when placed in command. The Battle of Franklin was a catastrophe. The only reason I can think for Sam to survive the war God, wanted him to write his auto.
No one wasted his own soldiers like Grant, and he is considered a hero.
Um, pardon Auntie’s intrusion, but evil and incompetent bastards like the British Field Marshall Haig during WWI or even Napoleon Bonaparte, responsible for up to five million war dead, made industrial strength killing of their own soldiers high art.
If you want a “friendly fire” massacre by ‘incompetent bastards’, check out the WW1 Gallipoli Campaign in Turkey where the Anglos lost nearly a quarter of a million soldiers.
It was certainly incompetence, and the first real beach invasion. What they learned enabled D-Day. Still many were lost because the landing craft coxswains wouldn’t go far enough into the beach and men drowned in the deep water with 100 lb packs on their backs. Soldiers are always expendable.
I agree auntie but we are taking about the civil war here.
Stonewall Jackson was great, and if he had survived, would gave used a more guerilla like approach rather than fighting pitched battles like that honorable idiot, Robert E. Lee…Then there would have been peace…Nation Bedford Forrest was also a terrific leader with guerilla tactics…
Don’t forget Mosby’s Rangers. At one point his 300 men tied down over 10,000 union troops. When the war was over the union didn’t want to let him surrender.
If you’re headed south on I-59 from Tuscaloosa, detour to Gainesville, AL. There is (hopefully still) a monument where Forrest surrended overlooking the Tombigbee River.
He held out for several weeks after April 9th.