Green Clay Smith (Richmond, Madison County, Kentucky attorney, politician, and soldier)
b. 1826-07-04 d. 1895-06-29
Richmond, Madison County, Kentucky attorney, politician, and soldier. Kentucky native. Married to Lena Duke Smith. Father of Eliza Clay Smith, Mary Buford Smith, Keith Duke Smith, Lena Duke Smith, and Green Clay Smith, Jr. Second lieutenant in the 1st Kentucky Cavalry Regiment in the Mexican War. Graduate of Transylvania University in 1849 and from the law department in 1852. Admitted to the bar in 1852. Attorney in Covington, Kentucky, in partnership with his father, John Speed Smith. School commissioner from 1853 to 1857 in Madison County, Kentucky. Member of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Kentucky from 1861 to 1863. Colonel in the 4th Kentucky Volunteer Calvary Regiment (U.S.A.). Brigadier general and brevetted major general of volunteers. Member of the United States House of Representatives from the Sixth Congressional District of Kentucky as an Unconditional Unionist from 1863 to 1866. Delegate to the National Union Party Convention at Baltimore, Maryland, in 1864.
Details
- Sex
- Male
- Race
- White
Bibliography
Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Kenton County, Ward 5, Covington, p. 226.
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, s.v. “Smith, Green Clay,” ( http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=S000544) (accessed December 16, 2016).
Charles Lanman, Biographical Annals of the Civil Government of the United States (Washington: J. M. Morrison, 1887), 459.
“Smith, Green Clay,” The Kentucky Encyclopedia, ed. John E. Kleber (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992), 829-830.
Zachariah Frederick Smith, et al., The Clay Family 14 (J. P. Morton and Company, 1899), 168.
Citation
Smith, Green Clay. Accessed via the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, https://discovery.civilwargovernors.org/document/S32205118 (January 18, 2026).
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