b. 07/04/1869 Tucson, Arizona. d. 10/01/1936 Riverside, California.
DATE OF MOH ACTION: 01/01/1891 White River, South Dakota.
Cornelius C Smith MOH
Cornelius Cole Smith was born on April 7, 1869, in the frontier town of Tucson in the Arizona Territory. his father, Gilbert Cole Smith, was a member of a distinguished military family dating back to the Revolutionary War. He had served as officer in the Union Army’s famed California Column during the American Civil War and later became quartermaster at Fort Lowell in Tucson. He was also related to brothers William and Granville H. Oury. His family lived at several outposts in the Arizona and New Mexico Territories, wherever his father happened to be stationed. In December 1882, they finally settled at Vancouver Barracks in the Washington Territory. Smith was then sent back east to Louisiana, Missouri, and in 1884 to Baltimore, Maryland. In 1888, Smith moved to Helena, Montana and joined the Montana National Guard on May 22, 1889.
On April 9, 1890, at age 21, Smith enlisted in the United States Army in Helena and was immediately sent out with 6th U.S. Cavalry Regiment for frontier duty in the Dakota Territory.
Within a year, Smith reached the rank of corporal and saw his first action during the Pine Ridge Campaign. On January 1, 1891, two days after the Battle at Wounded Knee Creek, he accompanied a fifty-three man escort of a U.S. Army supply train to the regiment’s camp at the battle site. While preparing to cross the White River, partially ice-covered during the winter, the supply train was suddenly attacked by a group of approximately 300 Sioux braves. In an attempt to save the wagon train, he and Sergeant Frederick Myers chose advanced positions from a knoll 300 yards from the river and held back the initial Sioux assault with four other troopers successfully defended their position against repeated enemy attacks. After they had withdrawn, Smith and the others chased after the war party for a considerable distance before breaking off their pursuit.
Smith’s actions at White River prevented the Sioux from capturing the supply wagons. He was cited for distinguished bravery in the face of a numerically superior enemy force and received the Medal of Honor on February 4, 1891.
The following year, on November 19, 1892, Smith was made a commissioned officer as a second lieutenant with the 2nd U.S. Cavalry. In 1898, he fought in Cuba during the Spanish–American War and in the Philippines during the Filipino and Moro Rebellions under Generals Leonard Wood and John J. Pershing respectively.
From 1903 to 1906, he served as captain with the 14th U.S. Cavalry, in Mindanao under General Wood, during which time he helped publish A Grammar of the Maguindanao Tongue According to the Manner of Speaking It in the Interior and on the South Coast of the Island of Mindanao (1906) with Spanish Jesuit Rev. Father Jacinto Juanmart.
In 1908, he accepted a two-year position as superintendent of California’s Sequoia National Park and Grant National Parks. In 1910, he returned to the Philippine Islands for 2 years as commander of the Philippine Constabulary under General Pershing.
After a nine-year tour of duty in the Philippines, Smith was brought back to the U.S. in 1912 and in fall transferred to the 4th U.S. Cavalry Regiment at Fort Huachuca in his home state of Arizona. From December 1912 to December 1914 he was reassigned to the 5th U.S. Cavalry as commanding officer of its Troop G at Huachuca, when the 4th U.S. Cavalry was sent for rotation to Hawaii. On March 13, 1913, he formally accepted the surrender of Colonel Emilio Kosterlitzky, commander of Mexican federal forces of Sonora and his 209 followers in Nogales, Arizona after General Álvaro Obregón had defeated him days earlier. The surrender was conducted in a formal ceremony, with Kosterlitzky presenting Smith his sword. The two officers later became lifelong friends.
During 1915, Smith was a military attaché in Bogota and Caracas, and rose through the ranks from major to colonel of cavalry within the next two years. He trained several regiments during World War I, but was denied further promotion and a field command in Europe due to the feud between General Pershing, then commander-in-chief of the American Expeditionary Forces on the Western Front (World War I), and Army Chief-of-Staff Peyton March. In 1918, he returned to Fort Huachuca where he assumed command of the post and the 10th U.S. Cavalry Regiment. His last assignment was at Fort Bliss where he had Camp Owen Beirne built, the model for similar bases constructed for servicemen following World War I. He retired in 1920 at the rank of colonel.
MOH CITATION:
With four men of his troop drove off a superior force of the enemy and held his position against their repeated efforts to recapture it, and subsequently pursued them a great distance.
BURIAL LOCATION: EVERGREEN MEMORIAL PARK, RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA.
UPPER BLOCK 5, LOT 393, GRAVE 3.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: UNKNOWN.
