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General Note

Accompanying note: "A general without troops, Confederate Gen. E. Kirby Smith called himself in the twilight days of the Civil War. The general, namesake for a school in Gainesville, as well as of many children, Smith commanded the Confederate Army which carried the fight in the South in Louisiana, Mississippi and on into Texas. The general complained, in a message to his troops, that he had left Shreveport, and on reaching the field had found his army disbanding. His last message, his appeal, his own refusal to surrender, spoken from Houston May 30, 1865 (Gen. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox Court House the previous April 9) was printed in the newly-established Gainesville New Era--perhaps the last order of the Confederacy."

"'I am left a commander without an army--a general without troops,' said Kirby Smith. 'You have made your choice. It was unwise and unpatriotic, but it is final. I pray you may not live to regret it. The enemy will now possess your country, and dictate his own laws. You have voluntarily destroyed our organizations, and thrown away all means of resistance.'"

"By the time the order was published, and printed in the New Era, much of Florida already begun to turn its thoughts to the reconstruction of the economy of the state."

Biographical Note

Smith was a career United States Army officer who fought in the Mexican-American War and Civil War. He served as a general in the Confederate States Army, notable for his command of the Trans-Mississippi Department after the fall of Vicksburg to the Union Army.