Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 09.djvu/449

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SMITH


SMITH


and assigned to the 2d artillery. He was com- missioned 2d lieutenant, July 9, 1853, and served on recruiting service at Fort Columbus, 1853. Tiring of the inactive frontier life, he resigned June 19, 1854, and went to Chicago, 111., where he became assistant engineer, Illinois Central railroad, and was in the United States service on the public works at Chicago. He was principal of the high school at Buffalo, N.Y., 1855-56; civil engineer in Buffalo, 1857-58, making various surveys on the northern lakes; engineer and secretary of the Locomotive and Machine Man- ufacturing company, Trenton, N.J., 1858-61, and employed in sinking cylinders by the pneumatic process for piers for a railway bridge across the Savannah river, 1859-61. He was assistant adjutant-general of volunteers, May-June, 1861; promoted colonel, 13th Ohio volunteers, June 26, 1861, and served in the western Virginia cam- paign, July, 1861, to January, 1862; was engaged in the movement on Bowling Green and at Nashville, Tenn., February, 1862; in charge of railroads centering at Nashville, March-April, 1863; participated in the battle of Shiloh, April 7, 1862, and was promoted brigadier-general, U.S. volunteers, April 15; and commanded the 2d division. Army of the Ohio, July-September, 1862; the 4th division, October, 1862, and the 1st division, 16th army corps, in the Vicksburg cam- paign, January-July, 1863. He was chief of cavalry. Department of the Tennessee, July 20, to Oct. 16, 1863, and of the military division of Mississippi, to July 15, 1864, when he resigned on account of illness and retired to his farm. Oak Park, Cook county, near Chicago. He constructed the Wangoshanee lighthouse, Straits of Mack- inaw, in 1867, employing for the first time the pneumatic caisson in sinking the foundations; built the steel bridge across the Missouri river at Glasgow, Mo., the first of its kind; was engineer of the tunnel under the Hudson river at New York city, and contractor for the* trial tunnel at Port Huron, Mich. He made many improve- ments in pneumatic sinking processes and in methods of constructing high buildings, and was engaged in much railway bridge work through- out the United States and Canada. He was mar- ried in 1884 to Josephine Hartwell. He was elected a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers; was president of the Civil En- gineers' Club of the Northwest in 1880, and pub- lished several professional reports.

SMITH, William Waugh, educator, was born in Warrenton, Va., March 12, 1845; son of Rich- ard M. and Ellen Harris (Blackwell) Smith, and grandson of Col. William Raleigh Smith. He re- moved with his parents to Alexandria, Va., where he attended Caleb Hallowell's school, engaged in journalism in 1861; served in the 49th, and


subsequently the 38th Virginia infantry. C.S.A., 1862-65, being wounded at Seven Pines, May 31,^ 1862, and at Gettysburg, July 3, 1803, wjiere he was left on the field and finally exclianged. He also took part in the campaign against Grant, participating in the battle of the ^Yilderness and in the struggle at the bloody angle at Spottsylvania. He surrendered with Col. Mosby at Winchester. After t!ie war he was asso- ciated with his fatlier as publisher and editor of the Richmond Enquirer, 1865-66; attended the University of Virginia one term, and was grad- uated from Randolph-Macon college, in which his father was a professor, A.M.. 1871. He was associated with his uncle, Albert Smith, at Bethel academy, 1871-76, and senior principal of the acad- emy, 1876-78. He was married, Jan. 26, 1875, to Marion, daughter of Samuel and Nannie (Ficklen) Howison, of Alexandria, Va. He was professor in Randolph-Macon college, 1882-86; president of the college, 1886-97, and in the latter year be- came chancellor of the Ra,ndolph-Macon system of colleges and academies. During his adminis- tration he was influential in increasing the endowment fund over $100,000, and also built and endowed the Woman's college at Lynchburg, and the preparatory academies at Bedford City and Front Royal, Va. The honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by Wesleyan uni- versity in 1889. He was secretary of education of the M.E. church, south, 1894; chairman of the general conference committee on education, 1894 and 1898, and is the author of: Outlines of Psychology (1881); A Comparative Chart of Syn- tax of Latin, Greek, German, French arid English (1884).

SMITH, Wilson George, musical critic and essayist, was born in Elyria, Ohio, Aug. 19, 1855; son of George Throop and Calista Maria (Wilson) Smith; grandson of Daniel S. and Mary (Foote) Smith, and of Pardon and Polly (Brownell) Wilson. He removed to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1868, where he attended the common schools; studied music under Otto Singer, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1875-80, and in Berlin under Kullak, Kiel, Scharwenka, Moszkowski and Oscar Raif , 1880- 82, returning in the latter year to Cleveland, Ohio, where he engaged as a teacher of piano, voice and composition. He was married, April 16, 1883, to Mez, daughter of Joseph and Lydia (Ward) Brett, of Geneva, Ohio. Mrs. Smith be- came known as a water-color artist, and was secretary of the Northern Ohio Woman's Press club from 1897-99. Mr. Smith was officially connected with the Music Teachers' National and State associations, and his compositions number opi 95, including; 15 books of piano studies, be- sides various transcriptions, many songs and editorial je visions of classic and modern works.