When he was seventeen and a half years old, John H. Smith enlisted in the 16th Infantry while he was living with his widowed father on his farm in Horicon, NY. They allowed him to stay with the regiment for three months, before they sent him home from the training camp in Elmira, NY, on March 30, 1864. Six months later, John, who was the son of Ephraim Smith and Matilda Morhouse, enlisted in the 95th Infantry in Plattsburgh.
By the end of October, the 18-year-old was in the Battle of Hatcher’s Run about twelve miles southwest of Petersburg where they had seven men captured in action. In December, he participated in General Gouverneur Warren’s Raid on Weldon Railroad where a long stretch of the railroad was destroyed, with the ties burnt and the rails heated and twisted so as to be unusable.
The 95th remained in the area through the winter of 1864/65 and fought again at Hatcher’s Run in February, garnering 37 casualties including six deaths. The regiment joined the Appomattox Campaign and, after Lee surrendered, had a 12-day march back to Washington, DC. John was mustered out on May 31st.
After the war, he married Fannie Comstock and the couple later moved to Glens Falls. He died on February 19, 1914, and was buried in the Bay Street Cemetery there. Fannie immediately applied for a Widows Pension and was buried beside him in the Smith Plot in 1928.
