Baldy Smith's Way Back

On this date in 1863, Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin called out the state militia to defend against a possible Confederate invasion. For whatever reason, response was lukewarm to this and subsequent appeals, and it turned out to be New York militia troops who made up the bulk of the local forces, i.e. not part of the Army of the Potomac, who put themselves in the way of the rebel advance.

 The painting by Ron Lesser shows the bombardment of Carlisle, Pa., by Brigadier General Fitzhugh Lee's brigade of Major General J.E.B. Stuart's Cavalry Division on July 1, 1863.

Carlisle is west of Harrisburg, which had been the Confederate Second Corps' objective until June 29. More significantly, it is north of Gettysburg, where, unknown to Stuart, most of the Army of Northern Virginia (including the Second Corps, under Richard Ewell) was engaged on July 1 in the first of three days of battle with the Army of the Potomac. While Stuart's bombardment continued past midnight, General Robert E. Lee, Fitzhugh's uncle, did not know the whereabouts of his cavalry.

The outnumbered, inexperienced militiamen in Carlisle were commanded by Brigadier General William F. "Baldy" Smith, a regular who had seen a lot of hard fighting in 1862 with the Army of the Potomac. But he was a friend of its ousted commander George McClellan, and a critic of McClellan's incompetent successor Ambrose Burnside, with the result that Smith found himself in 1863 demoted and out of a job. That left him free to take the militia gig and successfully defend Carlisle, refusing a demand to surrender. Later that year, under Grant, he played the key role in lifting the siege of Chattanooga, Tennessee, preparing the way for the federal victory there. But the next June, now a major general confirmed by the Senate, he was running into trouble at Cold Harbor and Petersburg, then falling out with Grant.

After the war, out of the Army, Smith's jobs included oversight of the New York City Police Department, where he found work for his friend Ely Parker. So he frames one chapter of The Last Circle of Ulysses Grant.