American Historical Ephemera and Photography

CDV on cardstock mount (small puncture to upper left, some staining and residue to print; staining and wear to mount edges and corners). Signed on print beneath portrait: "Thos A Smyth / com 3 Brig - 2" Div / 2" Army corps." Verso bears Curry's imprint and affixed 2-cent revenue stamp. Smyth is featured wearing a II Corps badge on his brigadier general uniform.

Irish-born Thomas A. Smyth raised a 3-month company at the start of the Civil War, enlisting as a captain commissioned to Company H of the 24th Pennsylvania Infantry on 1 May 1861. After mustering out with his regiment in August, he was commissioned a major of the 1st Delaware Infantry, with which he served at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville and was promoted to lieutenant colonel and then colonel. He was wounded at Gettysburg and recommended for promotion to brigadier general by General Hancock, but was not promoted until October of 1864.

On 7 April 1865, Smyth was near the town of Farmville, Virginia, when he and his men encountered Confederates and took on heavy fire. Smyth was his in the mouth, causing damage to his neck and spinal cord. Though he was transported to Burkesville Station and attended by surgeon D.W. Maull, Smyth passed away in the early morning of 9 April 1865. As Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House on the same day, Smyth became the last Union general to be killed or mortally wounded during the Civil War. He was posthumously breveted a major general two years later in March of 1867, being nominated for such by President Andrew Johnson.