Background
Thomas Kilby Smith (1820-1887) was a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. From 1843 to 1853, he practiced
law in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1853 he became special agent in the Post Office Department at Washington, and later served as
U.S. marshal for the Southern District of Ohio and deputy clerk of Hamilton County. In October 1861, Smith was commissioned
Colonel of the 54th Regiment of Ohio Infantry, which he commanded at Shiloh and the advance on Corinth. From 1863 to 1864
he fought under William Tecumseh Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant in Mississippi and Tennessee, commanding brigades in the Army
of the Tennessee (15th Army Corps, Sherman's Yazoo Expedition, and in 17th Army Corps), and serving on a court of inquiry
and on Grant's staff. Smith served as United States Consul at Panama from 1866 to 1869. In the early 1870s, he settled in
Torresdale, Pennsylvania and later was a member of the business staff of the New York Star. He died suddenly in 1887. Smith
was married to Elizabeth Budd McCullough and they had six children.
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