(1838 - 1923) Confederate brigadier general who was severely beaten after surrendering to Union forces at the Battle of Nashville on December 16, 1864. The resulting brain injuries eventually drove Smith to insanity, and he spent the last 47 years of his life in an asylum. Very strange A.L.S., 2pp. 8vo., [Nashville], March 25, 1903, addressed to Nellie Grant Sartoris, daughter of President Ulysses S. Grant. Writing while incarcerated in a mental institution, Smith rambles, in part: ‘The time has come for you and I to put our heads together and move [Theodore] Roosevelt and Negro squatters [?] out of the White House…Gen U S Grant and I fought 4 years to keep the Negros in Slavery. Genl Washington owned 100 Negro Slaves and Jeff Davis owned some 350. 1862 When the Confederate States Constitution was adopted… the Daughters of the Confederate States have issued crosses of Honor made of Cannon used by the armies of the North & South the Catholic Church so called is rotten the only Negros that are there are those who have left the Unite States since 1865 the Catholics must leave the United States and go to Africa where they can marry Negros…’ He signs ‘Tom Benton Smith’ in pencil at the conclusion, adding ‘President’, and also ‘T. D. Grant Vice President’. Shows horizontal folds, with splits thereto on the right edge repaired with archival tape, in very good condition overall.