Jacob H. Smith

Biography

Jacob Smith was a Civil War veteran of Shiloh with a checkered record — lawsuits, a fraud scandal, a reputation for brutality in the Indian campaigns — who by 1901 had risen to brigadier general largely by longevity. After the Balangiga attack killed 48 Americans in September 1901, Smith was given command of Samar and issued the orders that made him infamous. He told Marine Major Littleton Waller that he wanted the interior of Samar made 'a howling wilderness,' that he wanted every person capable of bearing arms killed, and — pressed for a lower age limit — set it at ten years old. Waller, to his credit, refused to pass the order on as given, but the campaign that followed burned villages, destroyed food stores, and killed civilians in numbers that have never been reliably counted. When the orders surfaced during Waller's own court-martial in 1902, the scandal reached the White House. Smith was court-martialed — convicted only of 'conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline' — and quietly retired by order of President Roosevelt. American newspapers had already given him his permanent title: 'Howling Wilderness' Smith.

Key Battles