William Sooy Smith

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Birth Date

1830

Death Date

1916

Gender

Race Description

White

Entity Type

Person

"William Sooy Smith" in the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, discovery.civilwargovernors.org/document/N00000914, (accessed November 4, 2025).

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Ohio engineer and soldier. Ohio native. Married to Josephine S. Hartwell Smith. Father of Gerald Campbell Sooysmith. Graduate of the University of Ohio in 1849. Engineering graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1853. Recruiter at Fort Columbus Deport, New York, from 1853 to 1854. Resigned from the United States Army on June 19, 1854. Assistant engineer with the Illinois Central railroad from 1854. Worked for the United States on the Public Works at Chicago, Illinois, in 1854. Principal and teacher in Buffalo, New York, from 1855 to 1856. Partner of the engineering firm of Parkinson & Smith from 1857 to 1858. Engineer and secretary of Trenton, New Jersey Locomotive and Machine Manufacturing Company from 1858 to 1861. Assistant adjutant general from May to June 1861 at Camp Dennison, Ohio. Colonel of the 13th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment (U.S.A.) from June 1861 to April 1862. Promoted to brigadier general on April 15, 1862. Served in several capacities from 1862 to 1864. Chief of cavalry of the Department of Tennessee beginning on July 20, 1863 and subsequently served as chief of cavalry of the Military Division of the Mississippi. Resigned from military service on July 15, 1864. Farmer in Oak Park, Illinois, from 1864 to 1865.

George W. Cullum, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduated of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., vol. 2 (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, and Co., 1891), 523-524.
Find A Grave, "William Sooy Smith (1830-1916)," Memorial #9838, http://www.findagrave.com/memorial/9838 (accessed February 15, 2017).

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