Kirby Smith, one of only 7 full generals commanding Confederate armies in the field, exercised civil as well as military authority in the isolated Trans-Mississippi area to an extent which caused this part of the Confederacy to be described as "Kirbysmithdom." Smith, a native of St. Augustine, Florida, was twice breveted for bravery in the Mexican War. He spent the 1850s at various frontier posts and at the outbreak of the Civil War hurried to Confederate headquarters to offer his services. Soon he was a brigadier with Johnston in Northern Virginia, and is credited with playing a key role in the rout of the Union forces at First Manassas. In the spring of 1863 he assumed command of the vast Trans-Mississippi Department. At the fall of the Confederacy, Smith was the last general to surrender. He spent the last twenty years of his life as a teacher and died at Sewanee, Tennessee at the University of the South.