Gen. Charles Smith 528469
"Damn you, gentlemen! I see skulkers! I'll have none here! You volunteered to be killed for your country, and now you can be! Follow me!" Gen Charles F. Smith during attack at Ft. Donelson
Noticing his raw troops hesitating, Smith had exploded before leading a charge up a slope and straight into the Confederate works.
"I was nearly scared to death, but I saw the old man's mustache over his right shoulder, and I went on," a soldier wrote afterwards.
Having spent 13 years as an academy administrator after graduating from West Point, Charles F. Smith knew how to turn volunteers into soldiers. As a highly regarded officer, it was political pull that resulted in Smith serving under Grant's command in Tennessee. Former cadet Grant remarked that, "it does not seem quite right for me to give General Smith orders" but it didn't stop him.
During the Battle of Ft. Donelson, Grant rode to Smith's position. "General," Grant shouted, "all has failed on our right! You must take Fort Donelson!" Smith exclaimed, "I will do it."
Smith's quick action resulted in the capture of the confederate earthworks surrounding the fort, positioning the Union to take it in the morning. Learning the confederates were asking for terms, Smith urged Grant, "No terms with traitors, by God!" Thereby, Grant made the decision that would earn him the nickname "Unconditional Surrender". Smith exclaimed, "By God, it couldn't be better!"
General Halleck, Commander of the Department, telegraphed McClellan:
"Brigadier-General Charles F. Smith, by his coolness and bravery at Fort Donelson when the battle was against us, turned the tide and carried the enemy's outworks; make him a Major-General. You can't get a better one."
Promoted to Major General, in command of the advance upon Shiloh, March, 1862, Smith wrote:
"This whole force is utterly demoralized by victory. There seems to be neither head nor tail. The utter want of discipline seems to me to be something marvelous, and yet I must have to go far into the bowels of the earth with these men. . .You shall hear a good account of me or of my death."
Grant, having been placed under Smith's command, vowed to serve, "as faithfully under Smith as he had done under me".
Unfortunately, he did not have a chance to do so. The "Old Man" jumping out of a steamer into a yawl, missed his foothold and badly injured the bone in his lower right leg. Smith ended up dying of infection a few weeks later.
Grant later credited Smith with his success, stating: "I owe my success at Donelson emphatically to him."
William Tecumseh Sherman later wrote,
"Had C. F. Smith lived, Grant would have disappeared to history after Donelson."
