Andrew Jackson Smith was born enslaved in Lyon County, Kentucky, on September 3, 1843. He escaped to the Union Army at age 19 and joined the 41st Illinois. He was wounded at the Battle of Shiloh and recuperated in Clinton, Illinois, where he learned that blacks could join the Union Army. He mustered into Company B, 55th Massachusetts Colored Infantry, on May 16, 1863. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2001 for gallantry in saving the regimental colors after the color bearer was killed at the Battle of Honey Hill in South Carolina on November 30, 1864, during the Civil War. After the war, he lived, bought, and sold land in the Between The Rivers area. He died in 1932 and was buried at nearby Mount Pleasant Cemetery.