onal favor
for the benefit of his health, which might well have been done, General
Smith has frankly admitted that he would have had no shadow of excuse
for anything but thanks. But when he was relieved without notice or any
assignment of cause, as he was starting on sick leave, and the order
was concealed from him till he had returned, a suspicion at once arose
in his mind as to the motives which inspired it, and the suspicion was
claimed by him as a sufficient justification for telling the world all
he knew in regard to those who were responsible for the action of which
he complains. His military criticism, however indiscreet, had always
been direct and manly. Its soundness had been approved by some of the
best officers ill the service, including Grant himself, but it must be
observed that the latter in his final report of the campaign, takes
pains to make the point, evidently to forestall criticism, that he held
himself responsible for only the general plans of the campaigns and
operations, and that in accordance with an invariable habit, he left
the details and the actual conduct of the battles to his subordinate
commanders. The wisdom of this arrangement is not here in question,
though much might be said against it. Its effect, if admitted, as a
sound rule of action, must be to transfer the responsibility for a
bloody and costly campaign to the shoulders of Meade, Humphreys,
Burnside, Butler, Sheridan, Hunter, and in a number of cases even to
those of corps and division commanders, instead of leaving it where it
more justly belongs, on the shoulders of those who were responsible for
the working organization of the army, and for the details of its staff
arrangements.

General Smith's true place in history does not depend solely on these
considerations, nor on his contributions to the history or criticism of
the war. Fortunately for him the military committee of the House of
Representatives of the Fiftieth Congress on its own motion, long after
all these incidents had been closed, investigated his military career,
for the purpose of deciding upon his fitness for the retired list, and
on April 20, 1888, it submitted to the House of Representatives a
highly favorable report, from which the following extract is taken:

"On October, 1863, he [General Smith] was transferred to the
West, where he in turn became Chief Engineer of the
Department of the Cumberland, on the staff of General George
H. Thoma