Smith, William Farrar (1824-1903) Union army officer. A Vermonter, Smith spent the early part of his military career as a surveyor and a teacher of mathematics at the U.S. Military Academy. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he was appointed colonel of the Third Vermont Volunteers. He fought at the first Battle of Bull Run (1861) and in the Peninsular campaign (1862). He was brevetted colonel in the regular army for his performance at Antietam (1862). An intemperate letter to President Abraham Lincoln criticizing his superior, Gen. Ambrose Burnside, backfired and cost him promotion to major general, and he reverted to brigadier general. As chief engineer of the Cumberland (1863), he was assigned the task of moving supplies from Alabama to Tennessee for Gen. William S. Rosecrans's starving army; his success won him the promotion to major general that had been denied. Smith's criticism of other of his superiors continued to hurt his advancement; that, plus his indecisive performance at Petersburg, caused Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to relieve him of his corps command in 1864. In 1865 he was brevetted brigadier general and major general, U.S. Army.

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