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Capn Tom Books
Nashville, TN 37217

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Thomas Benton Smith

Thomas Benton Smith was born February 24, 1838 in the middle Tennessee village of Mechanicsville.  He was destined to become a soldier like his father, James M. Smith, who fought alongside Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812.  At the age of sixteen, Benton entered the Western Military Academy in Nashville, Tennessee.  Also a student there was “Boy Hero of the Confederacy” Sam Davis.  When the war came along, Thomas Benton Smith helped organize a local militia that later became the 20th Tennessee Infantry Regiment.  He was promoted from lieutenant to captain and commander of Company B just before the ill fated Battle of Fishing Creek or Mill Springs.  Later at the Battle of Shiloh when his commander, Colonel Joel Battle was wounded and captured by the Yankees, Thomas Benton Smith was promoted to colonel and put in command of the whole 20th Tennessee Infantry Regiment.  Several other battles followed culminating in the bloody Battle of Stones River near Murfreesboro, Tennessee.  In that battle, Smith was seriously wounded and his brother, John was killed.  The Army of Tennessee spent the next few months in the Tullahoma, Tennessee area.  During this time, Thomas Benton Smith’s wounds healed sufficiently enabling him to resume command of his regiment only to be again wounded at the Battle of Chickamauga. As the Army of Tennessee was forced to retreat deep into Georgia, Smith was given an even larger responsibility, the command of an entire brigade.  In addition, General John Bell Hood promoted Smith to brigadier general. After the loss of Atlanta, the Army of Tennessee moved back north in an attempt to retake the city of Nashville. But before the army made it that far, they were brutally defeated at Franklin, Tennessee.  On the broken army advanced to Nashville only to be again defeated by a larger and better-equipped Union army.  As a prisoner of war, Smith was attacked by a drunken Yankee, Colonel William McMillen.  Three saber cuts across the head left Thomas Benton Smith a retarded invalid for the rest of his life.  Smith died in 1923 at the age of 85 after spending 47 years in the Central State Asylum for the Insane.  He is buried in Confederate Circle at the Mt. Olivet Cemetery near Nashville.  Thomas Benton Smith’s life story and the fate of Colonel McMillen is told in John Bridges’ new book, Three Cousins from Mechanicsville.