Colonel George Hugh Smith (CSA)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hugh_Smith

George H. Smith (February 3, 1834 – February 6, 1915) was a Confederate Civil War veteran and prominent Los Angeles lawyer and judge.

Early life and career

George Hugh Smith was born in Philadelphia, the son of George Archibald Smith and Ophelia Ann Williams. His family moved back to Virginia when he was a child. Smith attended Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington, Virginia with his cousin George Smith Patton, and graduated in 1853. Smith was admitted to the bar in 1855, and he practiced law until the out break of the Civil War.

Civil War

Smith entered the Confederate States Army in 1861, first as Captain, then as Colonel of the 25th Virginia Infantry, and transferred in the late 1862, to the 62nd Virginia Mounted Infantry, then Brig. General Imboden's Cavalry Brigade, which he commanded through closing campaigns of war. Smith fought in the Battle of Gettysburg, the Battle of New Market, the Second Battle of Bull Run, and in the Battle of Cedar Creek.

Postbellum

After the Civil War in 1866, Colonel Smith went to try farming in Mexico. He then went to San Francisco in 1868, and then to Los Angeles in 1869.

Los Angeles legal practice

In 1870 Smith joined the law partnership of Alfred Chapman and Andrew Glassell, the firm becoming known as Glassell, Chapman & Smith. Their law practice was confined chiefly to real estate transactions and they made their fortunes in the large partition suits. This law firm acquired and developed the land which ultimately became the city of Orange, California.

Colonel Smith became a California State Senator (1877–1878), Reporter of the California Supreme Court (1879–1882), and volumes 54 thru 62 of California Reports (1881–1884) were issued under his name, Commissioner California Supreme Court (1899–1904), and an Associate Justice of the California Courts of Appeal (1905–1906).

George Smith was a prolific author of California Supreme Court opinions. He was a frequent contributor to the American Law Review. He was a founding trustee and teacher at the Los Angeles Law School.

Family life

George H. Smith's elder brother Isaac Williams Smith (1826 - 1896), graduated VMI in 1847. He was a captain of engineers in the Confederate Army. After the war, Isaac Smith went to Mexico where he served as district engineer on the Imperial Mexican Railroad from Veracruz to Mexico City.

George H. Smith's younger brother Henry Martyn Smith (1844–1892), was a Captain in the Confederate Army. Henry Smith also went to Mexico in 1866 - 1867. In 1868, he went to San Francisco, and taught school at the Oakland Academy. In 1869, Henry Smith came to Los Angeles, practiced law; and was a Superior Court Judge 1883 - 1884. Henry Martyn Smith is interred at Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles.

In June 1870 George H. Smith married his cousin’s widow Susan Glassell Patton (1835 - 1883).

George H. Smith died at his desk in Los Angeles and is interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Published works

1877: Right and Law, A. L. Bancroft & Co

1886: The Law of Private Right, A. L. Bancroft & Co

1887: Elements of Right and of the Law, Callaghan and Co., 398 pages

1893: A Critical History of Modern English Jurisprudence, Bacon

1901: Logic, or, The analytic of explicit reasoning, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 266 pages

The Certainty of the Law and the Uncertainty of Judicial Decisions

The True Method of Legal Education

Logic and Its Uses — A Lawyer's View

Logic, or the Analytic of Explicit Reasoning

Theory of the State

The Theory of Jurisprudence

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=16296852

Civil War Veteran. Col Smith served with the 2nd Virginia Infantry of the Confederate States of America. Smith was also General George S Patton's step-grandfather.