Visitors to the First White House from Scotland

Two distinguished gentlemen, both Councilmen from central Scotland, visited the First White House of the Confederacy recently.Their connection to the First White House was through an iron foundry, Smith and Wellstood, which until lately was in Falkirk Council,  represented by one of our visitors, an area between Glasgow and Edinburgh.

 

The Smith part of the foundry name came from it being founded by James Smith, a well known supporter of the Confederacy in Britain, and the brother of Colonel Robert A. Smith, CSA, who was killed at Munfordville in 1862.

 

President Jefferson Davis visited James Smith at his home, on his trip to the UK after the War, in recognition of his brother's services and loyalty to the cause.  Toward the end of his life, James Smith visited the President at Beauvoir. How nice to know about this great friendship.

 

In honor of the 150th anniversary of Col. Smith's death, the two Councilmen resolved to visit places associated with him, in Munfordville, Montgomery and Jackson, Miss. It is a grand tribute to a gallant son of Scotland, who gave his life for the cause in which he believed, and to remember the friendship between a man who provided generations of employment in that area of Scotland, and  Jefferson Davis.