Samuel S. Smith

The Somervell expedition Smith joined was a campaign that fell apart. After the Mexican raids of 1842, President Sam Houston ordered Alexander Somervell to organize volunteers and invade Mexico if the army seemed fit. About 700 men left San Antonio on November 25, took Laredo on December 8 and forced Guerrero to capitulate. On December 19 Somervell, fearing disaster, ordered them to disband and go home by way of Gonzales. Only 189 men obeyed; some 308 under William S. Fisher pushed on into Mexico on the ill-fated Mier expedition.

What the plaque says

Samuel S. Smith member of the Woll and Somvervell expeditions, 1842 born in Boston, Mass. September 19, 1810 died August 18, 1882 his wife Sarah Brckett Smith born in New York February 28, 1836 died March 20, 1901.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Alamo — 1.2 mi
  Mission San Antonio de Valero before it was a fort: a church its builders never finished, a thirteen-day siege in 1836, and the Army gable of 1850-52 that became its emblem.
• La Villita Historic Arts Village — 1.3 mi
  The little village across the river from the presidio, where Cos surrendered San Antonio in 1835, rebuilt by Depression-era youth crews as a working crafts village.
• San Antonio River Walk — 1.3 mi
  A Depression-era park one level below downtown, built because San Antonio refused to pave its river after the 1921 flood, and designed by an architect the project later fired.
• San Fernando Cathedral — 1.7 mi
  The Canary Islanders' parish church on Main Plaza, where Bowie married and Santa Anna raised a red flag, rebuilt in Gothic Revival around the walls of the 1750s church.

More markers nearby

• Charles Frederick King — steps away
• Captain Lee Hall — steps away
• James Nathaniel Fisk — steps away
• Simona Smith Fisk — steps away