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his report of the battle of Chickamauga Gen. Lucius E. Polk said: ‘Colonel Smith of the Third and Fifth Confederate regiments acted with his usual courage and skill.
He has since been promoted.
Promotion could not have fallen on one more worthy.’
With the rank of brigadier-general he succeeded to the command of Deshler's Texas brigade, of Cleburne's division.
During the Atlanta campaign he commanded this brigade part of the time and Granbury part of the time.
On the 22d of July, near Atlanta, Smith was in charge, and on that occasion the brigade captured three lines of the enemy's works, 15 pieces of artillery and 2 stand of colors.
General Smith was wounded and forced to quit the field.
Many of the other officers were wounded and part of the command captured.
Subsequently he was in command of Mercer's Georgia brigade, of Cleburne's division, and after the death of Cleburne at Franklin, General Smith commanded the division at Nashville.
He and General Bate commanded the two divisions of the remnant of Cheatham's corps which went into the Carolina campaign of 1865, and Bate, commanding the corps at Bentonville, said that he could not confer too much commendation upon General Smith as a division commander in that battle.
He was equal to every emergency, and his conduct inspired his command to heroic deeds.
After the war General Smith settled in Mississippi.
He was a farmer from 1866 to 1877.
In the latter year he was elected superintendent of public education of the State.
Brigadier-General Peter B. Starke, a distinguished cavalry commander, became colonel of the Twenty-eighth Mississippi cavalry regiment by commission dated February 24, 1862.
His regiment was attached to the command of Gen. M. L. Smith, for the defense of Vicksburg, and in September was nearly 700 strong.
Stationed at Panola in November, he gave notice of the advance of Hovey's expedition from Arkansas, and during that
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
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