Background
Martin was born on September 9, 1819 at Danby, Tompkins County, New York, United States, to which place his father, Luther Smith, had removed from Maine.
Martin was born on September 9, 1819 at Danby, Tompkins County, New York, United States, to which place his father, Luther Smith, had removed from Maine.
He entered West Point as a cadet in 1838, and graduated in 1842.
Upon his graduation in 1842 he was commissioned in the topographical engineers, then a separate corps of the army. His service was entirely in the Southern states, except for a brief period in Mexico, when he reconnoitered and mapped the valley of the city of Mexico. He executed surveys of several rivers and harbors in Florida and Georgia, and examined into the possibilities of a projected ship-canal across the Florida peninsula. For five years, 1856-61, he also acted as chief engineer of the Fernandina & Cedar Key Railroad.
He was promoted first lieutenant in 1853 and captain in 1856. He tendered his resignation from the army, hoping to serve the Confederacy but determined in any event not to serve against it.
His resignation was accepted, April 1, 1861. He had already, March 16, 1861, been appointed a major of engineers in the Confederate regular army, being recorded as a citizen of Florida. Though occasionally commanding troops in the field - at one time a division - it was as an engineer that he was chiefly employed. He had a large part in the planning and construction of the fortifications of New Orleans and those of Vicksburg, and commanded troops in the defense of both of those places when they were taken in 1862 and 1863. He was appointed colonel, 21th Louisiana Infantry, in February 1862; brigadier-general (provisional army) in April 1862; and major-general in November 1862.
After the surrender of Vicksburg in July 1863 he was a prisoner on parole until his exchange some seven months later. From April to July 1864 he was chief engineer of the Army of Northern Virginia, and from July to October, of Hood's Army of Tennessee. In that capacity he was responsible for the construction of the fieldworks used in the campaigns of those armies. He was paroled at Athens, Georgia, in May 1865 and took up the practice of engineering as a civilian for the few remaining months of his life.
He died in Savannah.
Martin Luther Smith was one of the few Northern-born generals to fight for the Confederacy, as he had served most of his early military career in the South with the United States Army's topographical engineers. As chief engineer of the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana at the end of the war, he prepared the defenses of Mobile, Alabama, planned and constructed the defenses of Vicksburg. A bust of General Smith stands at the Vicksburg National Military Park, it was sculpted in 1911.
Quotes from others about the person
Senator Yulee said to Jefferson Davis "Smith's associations, feelings and interests are with the South" (1861, War Department records).
In 1846 he married Sarah, daughter of John and Harriet (Cooper) Nisbet of Athens.
