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Edmund Kirby Smith (May 16, 1824 – March 28, 1893) was a career United States Army officer who served with the Confederates during the Civil War, as one of only seven officers to reach the rank of Full General. Wounded at First Bull Run, he distinguished himself during Braxton Bragg's invasion of Kentucky, before being made commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department (Texas, Louisiana, Western Arkansas) in January 1863. After the Mississippi fell to the Union, this isolated zone became virtually an independent nation, nicknamed 'Kirby Smithdom'. In the Red River Campaign of Spring 1864, he commanded the victorious General Richard Taylor, who defeated the combined army/navy assault under Nathaniel Banks. On May 26, 1865, he surrendered his army at Galveston, Texas, before fleeing abroad to avoid arrest for treason. His wife negotiated his return. After the war, Smith worked in the telegraph and railway industries, as well as serving as a college professor. ==Early life and the U.S. Army== Smith was born in 1824 in St. Augustine, Florida, as the youngest child to Joseph Lee Smith and Frances Kirby Smith. Both his parents were natives of Litchfield, Connecticut, where their older children were born. The family moved to Florida in 1821, shortly before the elder Smith was named a Superior Court judge in the new Florida Territory, acquired by the US from Spain.〔〔 Older siblings included Ephraim, born in 1807; sister Frances, born in 1809;〔.〕 and Josephine, who died in 1835, likely of tuberculosis.〔.〕〔 In 1836, his parents sent him to a military boarding school in Virginia, which he attended until his enrollment in the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.〔 On July 1, 1841, Smith entered West Point and graduated four years later, standing 25th out of 41 cadets. While there he was nicknamed "Seminole" after the Native Americans of his state, and brevetted a second lieutenant in the 5th U.S. Infantry on July 1, 1845. He was promoted to second lieutenant on August 22, 1846, now serving in the 7th U.S. Infantry.〔 In the Mexican–American War, he served under General Zachary Taylor at the Battle of Palo Alto and the Battle of Resaca de la Palma.〔 He served under General Winfield Scott later, and received brevet promotions to first lieutenant for Cerro Gordo and to captain for Contreras and Churubusco. His older brother, Ephraim Kirby Smith (1807-1847), who graduated from West Point in 1826 and was a captain in the regular army, served with him in the 5th U.S. Infantry in the campaigns with both Taylor and Scott. Ephraim died in 1847 from wounds suffered at the Battle of Molino del Rey.〔 After that war, Kirby Smith served as a captain (from 1855) in the 2nd U.S. Cavalry, primarily in Texas. (From that year on through the war, Smith was accompanied by Alexander Darnes, then 15, a mixed-race slave of his family who served as a valet until emancipation.) (See photo of Darnes.)〔("Alexander Darnes and Kirby Smith Share Rare History" ), Jacksonville Historical Society〕 Kirby Smith collected and studied materials as a botanist; like many other military officers, he was also a scientist. Some of the items from his collecting at West Point, he donated to the Smithsonian Institution. Kirby Smith was assigned to teaching mathematics at West Point, from 1849-1852. According to his letters to his mother, he was happy with this environment. On May 13, 1859, he was wounded in his thigh fighting Indians in the Nescutunga Valley of Texas.〔 When Texas seceded, Smith, now a major, refused to surrender his command at Camp Colorado in what is now Coleman, Texas, to the Texas State forces under Col. Benjamin McCulloch; he expressed his willingness to fight to hold it.〔 On January 31, 1861, Smith was promoted to major, but on April 6, he resigned his commission in the U.S. Army to join the Confederacy.〔 His sister Frances (Smith) Webster remained loyal to the Union although married to Lucien Bonaparte Webster, a Confederate officer, who died during the war. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Edmund Kirby Smith」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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