pains to make the point, evidently to forestall criticism, that he held
himself responsible for only the general plans of the campaigns and
operations, and that in accordance with an invariable habit, he left
the details and the actual conduct of the battles to his subordinate
commanders. The wisdom of this arrangement is not here in question,
though much might be said against it. Its effect, if admitted, as a
sound rule of action, must be to transfer the responsibility for a
bloody and costly campaign to the shoulders of Meade, Humphreys,
Burnside, Butler, Sheridan, Hunter, and in a number of cases even to
those of corps and division commanders, instead of leaving it where it
more justly belongs, on the shoulders of those who were responsible for
the working organization of the army, and for the details of its staff
arrangements.

General Smith's true place in history does not depend solely on these
considerations, nor on his contributions to the history or criticism of
the war. Fortunately for him the military committee of the House of
Representatives of the Fiftieth Congress on its own motion, long after
all these incidents had been closed, investigated his military career,
for the purpose of deciding upon his fitness for the retired list, and
on April 20, 1888, it submitted to the House of Representatives a
highly favorable report, from which the following extract is taken:

"On October, 1863, he [General Smith] was transferred to the
West, where he in turn became Chief Engineer of the
Department of the Cumberland, on the staff of General George
H. Thomas, and of the Military Division of the Mississippi,
on the staff of General Grant. As such he devised the plan of
operations by which the Army of the Cumberland was saved from
starvation and capture at Chattanooga, and was duly credited