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SMITH, Green Clay, (son of John Speed Smith),
a Representative from Kentucky; born in Richmond, Madison County, Ky., July 4,
1826; pursued academic studies; served in the Mexican War; commissioned second lieutenant in the
First Regiment, Kentucky Volunteer Infantry, June 9, 1846; was graduated from Transylvania
University, Lexington, Ky., in 1849; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1852 and commenced
practice in Covington, Ky.; was school commissioner 1853-1857; member of the State house of
representatives 1861-1863; commissioned colonel of the Fourth Regiment, Kentucky Volunteer
Cavalry, April 4, 1862; brigadier general of Volunteers July 2, 1862; resigned December 1, 1863;
brevetted major general of Volunteers March 13, 1865; elected as an Unconditional Unionist to the
Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Congresses and served from March 4, 1863, until his resignation in 1866;
chairman, Committee on Militia (Thirty-ninth Congress); appointed by President Johnson as Governor
of Montana Territory and served from July 13, 1866, until April 9, 1869, when he resigned; moved to
Washington, D.C., where he was ordained to the Baptist ministry; was the candidate of the National
Prohibition Party in 1876 for President of the United States; pastor of the Metropolitan Baptist Church
in Washington, D.C., from 1890 until his death, June 29, 1895; interment in Arlington National
Cemetery.
BibliographyHood, James Larry. For the Union: Kentuckys
Unconditional Unionist Congressmen and the Development of the Republican Party in Kentucky,
1863-1865. Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 76 (July 1978): 197-215.
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