Henry Julius Smith

A 28 year old lawyer, he enrolled in Columbia, SC on 12 June 1861 and was elected and mustered as Captain of the Gist Rifles - Company D, Hampton Legion Infantry - on 15 June 1861 at Camp Hampton on Colonel Wade Hampton's estate near Columbia.

He was mortally wounded in the heart "while bravely leading his men" in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.

He was taken to a house in Shepherdstown, VA and was cared for there, but died of wounds on 21 September 1862. His widow Sallie filed for his final pay in May 1863.

Burial and basic unit information from a list in Confederate Veteran1. His service from his Compiled Service Records,2 online from fold3. The quote above from Colonel Gary's Report. His gravesite is on Findagrave. His picture from a CDV taken by Richard Wearn & Wm P. Hix in Columbia, SC, Spring 1861, now in the Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs, Library of Congress.

He married Sarah Elizabeth "Sallie" Cobb (1836-1904) in October 1860 and they had a son Washington Gaillard "Wattie" Smith (1861-1920).

His father Whitefoord Smith (1785-1863) was a Presbyterian minster, professor at Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC from 1855 to his death in 1863, and first president of Columbia (Female) College (1859-60); he's seen as a wealthy "retired gentleman" in Spartanburg in the US Census of 1860.

See an excellent blog post about Captain Smith's son Wattie visiting his grave and the family who cared for him in Shepherdstown in 1918, from Kevin Dietrich on his Cotton Boll Conspiracy.

1832; Anderson County, SC

09/21/1862; Shepherdstown, VA; burial in Elmwood Cemetery, Shepherdstown, WV