Smith-Mendenhall Family papers, 1858-1954

Robert Henry Smith was a Missouri resident who served in the Confederate States Army. He participated in the early settlement of Kansas during the 1850s before finally moving to St. Joseph, Missouri around 1858. On June 9 of that year he married Mary Susan Oliver (1838-1933) and the couple had a son, Harry L. Smith on January 13, 1861. Smith enlisted later that year and served with Missouri troops under the command of Major General Sterling Price. He participated in the battle of Lexington, Missouri, and accompanied the southern army on their withdrawal to the southwestern portion of the state that winter. He may have left the army during the spring of 1862 but by August he was a prisoner of the Union forces in St. Louis. By December he had rejoined the Confederate army in Arkansas and was appointed quartermaster under Brigadier General John Sappington Marmaduke with the rank of major. He participated in the battles of Cane Hill, Prairie Grove, and Helena, Arkansas while serving with Marmaduke. While manning a gun at the battle of Helena, Robert Henry Smith was killed by enemy fire. Mary Susan Smith remained in St. Joseph with her son until 1869 when she moved to Montana Territory to join her sister and brother-in-law, Dr. and Mrs. Achilles Lamme. All eventually settled in Bozeman where, in 1870, Mary Susan married John S. Mendenhall, Dr. Lamme's business partner in a Bozeman general mercantile establishment. The couple later had one son, Samuel A. Mendenhall, before John Mendenhall's death in 1896. Mary Susan Mendenhall died in 1933 at the age of 95.