GEORGE SMITH was born December 12, 1831, in Bedford County, Tenn., son of John E. and Nancy (Mayfield) Smith, natives of North Carolina and Tennessee, respectively. The father was born in 1801 or 1802 and died about 1840. He was a successful farmer. The mother was born about 1806. Our subject was the second of five children born to his parents. He was reared on the farm and remained there until he was eighteen years of age. He then attended school at Chapel Hill, Tenn., and continued there about fifteen months, after which he returned home and engaged in farming as well as in stock and Negro trading up to the time of the late war. He enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1861 in Col. Starnes Cavalry Company B. He remained with this company about two years and was then transferred to the Forty-fourth Tennessee Infantry, Company G. He was wounded at the battle of Murfreesboro which disabled him from active service about fifteen months. He again returned to service and remained throughout the entire war.
Previous to the war, in 1852, he was married to Martha Rainey, a native of this county, born August 29, 1832. This union has resulted in the birth of eight children: Nancy A., Emmet, Andrew J., John M., Sallie C., Mattie G., Robert E. and Emma. Our subject has been quite successful and has accumulated the greater part of his property since the late war. He and wife are members in good standing in the Missionary Baptist Church.
Transcribed by Kathryn Hopkins
Goodspeed Publishing Co. History of Tennessee from the Earliest Time to the Present: Together with an Historical and a Biographical Sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford & Marshall Counties, Besides a Valuable Fund of Notes, Reminescences [Sic], Observations, Etc., Etc. Easley, S.C.: Southern Historical Press, 1988.