Confederate Mariner: Leon Smith

Smith's war began before the plaque's Galveston chapter. In April 1861 he and his steamer General Rusk helped take the Star of the West by pulling alongside and passing as a troop transport. At Galveston he rigged the cotton-clad Bayou City and Neptune, the Handbook of Texas says, and the wartime governor Francis Lubbock later ranked him the ablest Confederate naval commander in Gulf waters. Wikipedia places his birth in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1829. He died in Alaska on December 26, 1869.

What the plaque says

Confederate Mariner: Leon Smith "Lion" of Texas coastal defense during the Civil War. Commanded marine department of military district. Born in New England, went to sea at 13. By age 20 was a captain. In 1850s commanded on the Galveston to New Orleans run of Southern Mail Steamships. In Feb. 1861, when Texas had seceded, commanded ship taking Col. John S. "Rip" Ford to Brownsville to take military possession of the Rio Grande. In April, with ship and crew, volunteered in Confederate navy. With 2 days' notice, prepared water-born part of offensive that won Battle of Galveston on Jan. 1, 1863. Walled his ships with cotton bales; in brief fighting captured the pride of the Federal navy. On Sept. 8, 1863, ordered a Confederate ship into sea battle. Then personally rode through enemy fire to join Dick Dowling's 47-odd-men on land, and fight in the battle that turned out to be victory of Sabine Pass. He and his ships helped prevent Federal landings to take food, water and wood from Texas coasts. They also ran Federal blockade and aided other ships in slipping past enemy patrols with Texas cotton to exchange overseas for goods scarce in the South: guns, ammunition, shoes, coffee, cloth, medicines. Died in Alaska, December 26, 1869. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• 1859 Ashton Villa — 0.2 mi
  A brick Italianate house on Broadway, built with enslaved labor in 1859, whose lawn has held Galveston's Juneteenth commemoration of General Orders, No. 3 every year since 1979.
• The Strand — 0.4 mi
  Five blocks of iron-front brick buildings near the harbor that were once called the Wall Street of the Southwest, emptied after 1900 and brought back by preservationists from the 1960s.
• Moody Mansion — 0.4 mi
  A four-story, 28,000-square-foot house on Broadway, finished in 1895, that W. L. Moody Jr. bought just after the 1900 storm and his family kept until Hurricane Alicia in 1983.
• 1892 Bishop's Palace — 0.5 mi
  Nicholas Clayton's stone house on Broadway for the railroad lawyer Walter Gresham, later home to Galveston's Catholic bishops and one of the most admired Victorian houses in the country.

More markers nearby

• Norris Wright Cuney — steps away
• Rabbi Henry Cohen — steps away
• The Rt. Rev. Monsignor James Martin Kirwin — steps away
• Galveston in the Republic of Texas — steps away