Colonel Charles Kilgore Smith
Among those who remained in the army after the close of the war was Colonel Charles Kilgore Smith, the second son of Charles K. Smith, of Hamilton, for a long time one of the leading citizens of this county, and the first secretary of the Territory of Minnesota. He was born in Hamilton on the 22d of October, 1834, and was carefully instructed in all the usual branches of education, receiving in addition a course of training at the military academy at West Point, to which he was appointed in 1850. The rigorous requirements of the place enfeebled his naturally weak constitution, and the idea of a military life was abandoned, he thought, forever; but at the beginning of the civil war, prompted by duty and patriotism, be entered a company, and, as first lieutenant, aided in drilling and disciplining the troops, accompanied them to Columbus, and when this company finally crystallized into one of those forming the Twenty-sixth Regiment, he was made quartermaster. He accompanied it to Louisville, its first trip, and was, in conjunction with Colonel E. P. Fyffe, who commanded, highly complimented by the press for the able manner in which his duties were discharged. His efficiency and eminent abilities soon attracted attention, and he was promoted to a captaincy, acting as chief assistant in the quartermaster's department at Chattanooga before, during, and subsequent to the Atlanta campaign. General Rousseau, an excellent judge of men, placed him upon his staff", and evinced by his conduct that he regarded him as one of the most efficient and trustworthy officers in the service. He followed the army in its vicissitudes and perils during its four years of trials and changes, winning each year higher and higher positions, rising from chief assistant in the quartermaster's department to that of chief quartermaster of the department of Georgia, with the grade of colonel. At this, time he was on the staff of Major-general Steadman, who was in command of that department. He was commissioned major by brevet, March 13, 1865, "for gallant and meritorious services during the war." He did not receive his appointment as major until he had been commissioned a colonel, the appointment of major having been knocked about in the mails for nearly a year before it reached him, owing to the uncertainties of war.
While still very young he joined the Free Masons, in Washington Lodge, Hamilton, of which, his father had so long been an ornament, and carried into his everyday life those principles of honor, good faith, and charity there inculcated. He was naturally a Mason. In the army he aided in establishing military lodges, and through his instrumentality in this respect much suffering was alleviated.
He was in public life a model of integrity and industry, but it was in private life that he was justly to be estimated. He was most kind and affectionate. In his deportment to his parents he was respectful, dutiful, and warmly affectionate; to his brothers and sisters he was considerate, loving, generous, and just, and to his friends constant and true. He could be depended upon in all the relations of life to do that which was right and becoming, neither turning away from the weak and afflicted because they were under a cloud, nor courting the society of those favored with this world's goods because their influence might be valuable to him.
His death, from hemorrhage of the lungs, occurred in Columbia, South Carolina, December 30, 1870, when he had barely entered his thirty-seventh year. It cast a deep shade of sorrow over a large circle of friends, and occasioned the deepest anguish in his family circle. His noble deeds and self-sacrificing devotion have placed his name on the pages of his country's history.
"A History and Biographical Cyclopaedia of Butler County, Ohio", Evansville, Ind. 1882 - Submitted by K. Torp

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