James Jackson Manning Smith

Son of a master carpenter, in 1860 he was a 20 year old sawyer living with his parents and 6 younger siblings near Ellaville in Schley County, GA. He enlisted at Dawson, GA on 5 September 1861 and mustered at White Sulphur Springs as a Private in Company K, 27th Georgia Infantry on 18 September. The regiment was re-designated the 31st Georgia Infantry about April 1862. He was slightly wounded, in the left collar bone, on 17 (27?) June 1862, and again, in the left ankle, at Chantilly on 1 September.

Due to his previous wounds, he was sent to a hospital in Frederick, MD on 10 September, left behind, and captured there.

He was in US Army General Hospital #1 in Frederick, MD to 18 September and afterward was a prisoner at Fort Delaware to 2 October, where he thought "humanity and feeling was abandoned and we were treated as brutes." He was then sent to Aikens' Landing, VA for exchange, was in a Richmond, VA hospital to 27 October, finally sent to the parole camp in Richmond, where he was formally exchanged on 10 November 1862. He was appointed a regimental Musician by December 1863, was wounded in the shoulder at Winchester, VA in September 1864, and served to at least November 1864, with no later military record.

In 1870 he was a carpenter at Cuthbert in Randolph County, GA but he went to Texas in 1875 and by 1880 was a millwright at Burnet in Burnet County, TX. In 1900 he was an architect in Coryell County, TX and in 1910 he was living with his daughter Clara (Insall) and her large family on their farm in Williamson County, TX.

His service from his Compiled Service Records,1 online from fold3. He's also on the Confederates In Frederick List. 2 Further details from him in Reminiscences.3 Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860-1910. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Catherine Ophelia Brown (1845-1894) in May 1861 and they had 10 children.

See an excellent c. 1902 photograph of him (and an earlier one with his wife) over on the blog.

11/04/1839; Oxford, GA

05/10/1910; Houston, TX; burial in Old Burnet Cemetery, Burnet, TX